Ode to a Toad

It's not really an ode. I thought about writing one, but I suck at poetry. Prose is more my style, but "Prose to a Toad" sounded stupid.

The toad in question is this one.

Actually, it's like this one, but with blue where the orange part is. That's very important.

During the last week of school, Luke's interest in wearing underpants increased to the point that the first thing he did each evening when we got home was change into some. He can do that himself now. I know this because I accidentally got the underpants out of the drawer one time when he intended to do it himself, and after I had dressed him completely, he undressed and changed underpants to a pair that he got out of the drawer. By himself. It didn't matter what kind, just that he did it himself. The independence? It's lovely and also frustrating. So frustrating.

Still, though he was working really hard, he had not been successful with the actual using the potty part of the operation. Until last Friday night when a small miracle occurred in our life and he used the frog potty at Grandma's house. Three times. We brought it home with us. And, we bought another one the next day. The newer ones have the orange bowl; it was just barely acceptable. The blue-bowled frog is very much his preference.

He used the potty all weekend, even at church in a not-frog potty. Since Monday, he's been wearing underpants for all of his waking hours and he has not had an accident yet. He even went yesterday afternoon when I suggested he just try before we left Aunt Becca's house - on command. He made it happen.

This "potty training" business went just like I thought it would. As soon as it clicked, it was game on. Potty training. Whatever. The only training we've done involves the careful emptying of the bowl (which he must do himself) and hand washing, the rest was just me freaking out like a fool everytime he uttered a breath about needing to potty and washing lots of laundry.

I already feel like I can take him out of the house in underpants and he'll be able to make it to a potty and use it. He still asks for a diaper to poop in, but that's fine with me. We can work on that later - preferrably when he's comfortable sitting on the big potty. I'd rather change poopy diapers than clean poop out of a little plastic bowl, but maybe that's just me?

What a week.

It's been an emotional week - happy, sad, exciting. I've been too busy processing to think of things to write.

Graduation was fantastic and we had a great weekend. For the first time in a while, we had no where to be on Saturday morning. I woke up before the kids and sat on the porch with Dave to drink my coffee. We went to breakfast and did our shopping, and I spent a few hours cooking for the week. We filled the house with cousins for the evening and Dave made supper. It was a low-key day, and we needed it.

Sunday morning, I found a letter from Dave in my coffee drawer. I sat down in the sunshine in the Big Room to read it while I drank my coffee and I cried. It was one of those things that is just so perfectly on time, so perfectly soothing to the soul, so very needed in the moment. I've read it over and over again since then.

After church we had lunch at Rebecca's with Grandmother, and supper at our house with Grandma. It was a day full of family; a really good day.

Monday was Monday, but Tuesday was the last day of school. For one kid, it was a blast (he had a water party and was just beside himself about having chips and pizza for lunch), for the other, it was hard. It was hard for me, too, knowing how she felt and feeling very much the same. I had written thank you notes to her teachers the night before, trying to fit all of my gratitude for the past three years coherently into a note card. As if three years of loving her wasn't enough, she came home with a hefty three ring binder full of the things she did this year and notes from her friends and her teacher. I flipped through the whole thing immediately, but Dave chose to wait, saying, "I can't handle that right now." The best part is the book with all of her friends handprints and notes about what they liked to do with her and why they like her, including a page from her teacher - which she didn't know about until I read it to her. We sat on the couch last night and went through the whole binder, and at bed time she asked if I would read the friend book again tonight. It's obviously a source of comfort to her. She has asked me to pray for her each night about being out of school because she wasn't ready for it to be over and she misses her friends. I have. I've prayed while she listened, and I've prayed some more later when I went to check on her and found her sleeping. I know she'll be fine once we get fully into the swing of summer, but she's struggling right now, and I'm struggling right along with her. If the end of preschool is this rough, what kind of wreck will I be at the end of high school?

The highlight of the week for them both was coming home Tuesday evening to see our waterslide inflated in the yard. Luke's eyes grew 10 sizes as he asked me, breathlessly, "I get to put my swimpoot on?" Yep. Swimpoot time. They have played and played, and we will probably leave it up until the pool opens next weekend. Then, it will be put away until her birthday party.

We also had our one week check-up on the new earrings, and Dr. Tattoo Piercer gave her a clean bill of health. Again, Luke queued up his list of ailments to report, and asked me about our "appointment" as we were leaving. For some reason, I'm finding his confusion about this especially amusing.

Outside of our household, some of my friends and several others I pray for regularly have also had very emotional weeks with sickness and injury and bad news and good news. It's been a lot to take in, and I've spent a lot of time stopping mid-something to pray for whoever just popped into my head. That's how it works for me, my mind just wanders along doing what it does, then suddenly it's like Emeril makes an appearance in there: "BAM! Someone's Name," and I have to pray.

The verse I've clung to this week is the one Ella's teacher gave them in class on Monday. It seems fitting for most of the people I've prayed for this week.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9

Closing a Chapter

Ella's preschool graduation was tonight. Ironically, I paid for preschool graduation and registered for kindergarten in the same week of April. I bought her a dress, sent in a baby picture for the slideshow, made sure she was dressed for cap and gown pictures, and until this week, it's just been a list of things to handle so that she had everything she needed when she needed it. But this week, her teacher's daily Ask Me emails changed into things like, "Friday is graduation! I hope that all of your children will still be joining us for school on Monday and Tuesday of next week. If your child will not be returning for those days, please let me know ASAP so that I can make sure I have everything ready for them on their last day. :)"

Yes, that got me. Because it's not just her last day of the year; it will be her last day at preschool. Ever. Then I started thinking about how much fun she's had there, and about the friends that she won't get to see every day anymore, and about how exciting and sad graduation can be. I started paying attention to her solemn but excited attitude when we talked about it, and I realized that this might be her first, truly bittersweet experience - the first crossroads in her life where there is no where to go but forward, and what's ahead is exciting, but leaving what's behind is sad. And all of that is what made me need to cry about preschool graduation, more than the fact that she seems more grown up each day. Ear piercings and fifth birthdays and kindergarten are big milestones, but realizing that you are telling your friends "goodbye" instead of "see you tomorrow" is, I think, more impactful. She does realize this, and I am humbled by her graceful handling of it. She is not the baby I sent there three years ago.




Tonight, I watched her sing her heart out in the serious way that she always performs, I watched her get her certificate, and I watched a slideshow of pictures of all the kids from all their years at Concord and I let the tears run down my cheeks for all the fun, and all the learning, and all the growing up she did there. At the end of it, I handed her the orange roses I bought for her - orange because we read a book once that had picture of a lady in her cap and gown with roses in her arms and Ella told me then that she wanted orange roses when she graduated. She couldn't believe they were for her, and that they were real, and that there were other presents from Grandma and Pop the Pop, and Aunt Becca, and Grandmother and Papa.

She still has two days of school, and I'm glad for that because now that graduation is over, I know that they will be two days full of play with her friends. I hope she has a blast. I hope the last two days are as good as tonight, because she really loved tonight.

I'm pretty sure this is a peek into the future.



P.S. Guess what else? There was vomit. Is any Roper event complete without it? I think not.

Freshly Pierced

We didn't have Ella's ears pierced as a baby because I wanted to wait until she asked for it. I wanted it to be a big deal for her. She started talking about it a couple of years ago, and I've always told her, honestly, that it would hurt a little. She always decided to wait a little longer.

Last weekend, she started talking about it again in earnest, inlcuding a private conversation in her room where I had to talk through the whole procedure and how it would hurt again. That was Friday night, and she decided she wasn't ready. Sunday morning, as I was getting ready for church, I heard her talking to Luke.

"Luke, do you want to know a secret? I'm going to get my ears pierced so I can wear real earrings. Don't you think that will be pretty?" He did, of course. I think it's awesome that he was the first person she told about her decision.

Then, she started hounding me about when she could get it done. She wanted to go Saturday. I told her to chill because I needed to talk to Dave about it and find a place that would pierce a kid. A place that doesn't use a piercing gun.

I had already done my reading on the subject and decided that, when she was ready, I wanted to take her to a professional piercer. I just wasn't comfortable with the gun, and having had piercings done both ways, I believed the needle route would be a better fit for Ella. I thought she would be more comfortable in the privacy of a piercing room than sitting in the middle of a store where everyone could watch, I thought the gun would freak her out, and I liked the sterility of the individually wrapped needles.

The challenge was finding a place that would do it. Some doctors offices offer it, but that would mean taking time off work. I was looking for a tattoo studio. On my third phone call, I found a place that would do it. I called again the next day to talk to the owner, and he was totally nonchalant about it. He had pierced his own daughter's ears when she was three, and from the things he said, I gather he's pierced lots of kids. He told me what kind of earrings to buy and to just stop by when we were ready. He was going to be out of town over the weekend, so we decided to go last night on the way home after gymnastics. Dave met us there so he could witness this milestone, too.

When we got there, we met the owner's five year old daughter and she talked and talked to Ella about her earrings. I handed over the earrings and he checked them out and said they would work perfectly, then he went to set up. He came back to the lobby a few minutes later and led us back to a room that looked very much like a procedure room in a doctor's office except for the occasional sign with profanity or poster of scantily clad, tattooed, and pierced women. In fact when the piercing was over and Ella got down from the chair, Luke piped up to tell the man, "It's my turn. My tummy hurts." He thought we were at a doctor's office.

Little kids amaze me with their acceptance of people. I had already talked to Ella about the fact that we would see lots of tattoos and different kinds of piercings, to which she responded, "Okay." She hasn't said a word about anything she saw there, including the man who did the piercing, who had several tattoos and piercings of his own. Luke hasn't said anything either. Neither of them seem the least bit affected by it.

Ella was a trooper. She made it through both piercings before she cried, just a little, and by the time we got home, she was fine. This morning, she was very happy watching the light bounce off the little gold hearts in her ears while she was getting dressed in front of her mirror.

Freshly Pierced Ears

More than I Deserve

I went to Breakfast with Mommy at preschool today. There was doughnut stickiness, sweet smiling faces, thumbprint-decorated potted flowers, and happy kids running off to their classrooms with barely time to spare for telling me, "Bye, Ma! See you later alligator, after while crocodile!" They love it there. I love it there.

My Flowers

Ella spent the night with Grandmother last night and I heard that she woke up terribly excited about Breakfast with Mommy and the things she had made for me. She couldn't wait to show me the little book she made about all the reasons she loves her mom, complete with pictures she drew.

It humbled me to my core.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my to-do list, in the routine, in myself, that I forget to stop and appreciate them. Sometimes I'm just going through the motions trying to make sure their physical needs are met - food, drink, sleep, play - that I forget to enjoy the people that they are along the way.

I love them. I love them so much that I tell them "no" and "stop" and "be respectful" and "that's annoying" and "clean up the mess you just made". I love them so much that I acknowledge their anger and hurt feelings and complete, tantruming meltdowns when they don't like my answer, but I don't excuse them from the consequences. I love them so much that I spend too much time working to make sure they have clean clothes, clean teeth, clean bodies, clean dishes, clean rooms; I don't always spend enough time playing. I don't always spend enough time listening, or reading to them, or cuddling them.

And yet, they love me. They love me so much that they get really, really excited about having breakfast with me at school, and about the flower pots they painted with their thumbs, and about the book she made for me.

Ella's Book

It humbles me because the very things she listed as her reasons for loving me are the things that I always think I need to do better. They are more than I deserve.

Heavyweights

At any given time, there is a lot of pent up aggression and frustration in our house. That's to be expected, I assume, since we're in the business of toddler raisin', lawyerin', and just plain livin' in this ridiculous world. Ridiculous. (But that's a post for another day.)

Since we aren't just parents and professionals, since we are also humans, sometimes we lose our cool. Sometimes we lose it in a big way, and it feels good to dismiss that fruit called self-control (Galatians 5:22) for a few minutes and wail on a Little Tikes basketball goal. But only for a few minutes, because when the dust settles, all we are left with is a broken toe, an icky feeling, and a mess to clean up.

It was after one such incident that Dave and I were discussing punching bags and how we would love to have one for these moments when we just can't contain ourselves any longer. We said we would think about buying one. We thought we would both use it. I've wanted a punching bag since highschool, and now we actually have a place to put one. We thought maybe we should do it.

Then, the very next day, Dave came home after a very frustrating work day and started his recap with, "I just want to hit someone." Without a word, I grabbed my laptop and ordered a heavy bag and a pair of gloves. He said he didn't need gloves. I told him that I do. If he wants to walk around with busted knuckles, that's his business, but I do not. I do intend to wail on that thing.

I failed to order gloves for the kids, but I've since decided that they need a pair, too. I'm just giddy with the thought of interrupting a tantrum or a fight with, "Here are the gloves. Go to the basement!"

Actually, I probably need two pairs so they can both hit the bag at the same time. Yeah. Two pairs it is.

I can't wait until the next time Dave tells me he just wants to hit something: "Oh? Go to the basement."

I can't wait until the next time a kid yells "Ma!" thirty times in a row as I'm tripping over the dog and trying to talk on the phone. I'm going to send myself to the basement.

This might be a stroke of brillance in our lives.

Our new addition.

Also? According to the box it was shipped in, a 20 minute workout on a heavy bag burns 281 calories. That's a pretty sweet deal for beating the crap out of something.

For the Love of Sleep

I was flipping through the pictures in my phone and realized that 3 of the last 6 were of Luke sleeping. I like to take pictures of my sleeping children because that's when they look most like their baby-selves and because sometimes it's funny.

Then I started thinking that I've written so much on this blog about what a horrible sleeper Ella was until she was 3 and a 1/2 and about how sleep deprived I've been in general for the last {almost} five years. I decided I should write a post to say that IT REALLY DOES GET BETTER.

My second child, Super Fast, is so busy for all of his waking hours these days that he embraces sleep with nearly the same love that I have for it. He actually ASKS for nap or bed when he's sleepy. It's amazing and still a bit unbelievable. He also usually wakes up happy, or at least not screaming bloody murder like his sister did every time she woke up for the first 2 years of her life.

First Thing in the Morning
Yes, he has Dora sheets and he loves them.

He has started letting Dave put him to bed. He lets him stay in there with him while he falls asleep. Without me in the room. Ella was almost 4 before that was allowed. It's kind of liberating because it gives me a few minutes to myself or to snuggle with Ella, but I really love those bedtime cuddles so I'm not willingly handing over the bedtime job yet.

He's so serious about his sleep that I have always been able to scoop him out of the car or the couch or where ever he fell alseep and put him right to bed without waking him. I can even change his clothes. He recently continued his car nap in the buggy while we grocery shopped one busy Saturday. Granted, he did learn to roller skate that day, but how many kids wake up, get in the buggy, and go back to sleep? I know one big sister who NEVER would have done that.

Napping - ACTUAL NAPPING - in the Snot Rocket at Publix

He sleeps through the night often now, but even on the nights that he wakes up, sometimes he lets Dave help him back to sleep. This is new for us. Dave has never been able to help with the nighttime parenting. I think I might be able to count on three fingers the number of times he was able to get Ella back to sleep during the night. I'm pretty sure he helped Luke back to sleep three nights this week. I LOVE this part. LOVE love it. I'm at my parenting worst in the middle of the night.

Napping in Dad's hat with a sweet, self-drawn tribal tattoo.

He even puts himself to nap already. Not at home usually, but at school and at Grandmother's house. He just gets in bed and goes to sleep. I've seen him do it once and it boggled my mind. The afternoon after his surgery a few weeks ago, I was napping on the couch and he was flopping all over the furniture, trying to find a comfortable spot to nap, too. I told him to get in the chair or go to his bed. When I woke up an hour later, he was sleeping in the chair, all by himself.

Looking for a nap spot after surgery.

Sometimes the big sister will nap, if she just really cannot help it, and then it's usually an accident. However, she is willing to rest or play quietly in her room during nap time these days, so at least I get to nap when Luke does.

After a long day at the zoo, they both gave up.

And big sister? That sweet, sleepless, angry-waking baby that was born first so that I would humble myself and pray? She sleeps through the night now. She asks to go to bed eary when she's really tired. She COMES TO FIND ME AND ASKS ME TO TUCK HER IN SO SHE CAN SLEEP. I never, ever, ever thought that was going to happen.

I've Started a Worm Farm

It's technically a compost pile, but is that really much different than a worm farm? I can't get past the irony of a worm-hater like myself - I once tossed an entire fishing pole into the creek because the worm touched my leg - starting a compost pile.

But I did.

And it has big, fat, juicy worms in it already. I'm a bit horrified at the mixed feelings I have about this. On the one hand, worms. On the other, I know they are doing a job in there so I took care to make sure I covered them all back up when I turned the pile yesterday. WHO AM I?

A person who is about to trade the love of having her hands in the dirt for gloves, that's who. I can let them be to do their job, but I cannot abide accidentally touching one, so, gloves.

I also uncovered some fat grub-like things in the flower bed I planted. I'm not sure exactly what they were, and I'm not about to Google and risk having images of worms and grubs permanently seared into my corneas, but suffice it to say that if I were a warthog or a meerkat, it would have been a feast.

All this worm business is for yet another attempt at growing green things. Vegetables and flowers, and one citronella plant to scare the mosquitos away from the back porch. I'm trying to make the patio more hospitable.

Flowers in the Fire Ring

I'm hoping these flowers will fill up the entire ring in a few weeks. I know they have the potential to do that, I'm just not sure of their chances with me as the caretaker. And also, with the flower-eating deer herd that lives near our house.

Tomatos and Red and Green Bell Peppers

The tomatoes are in containers on the back porch for the sunlight, and also, to protect them from the deer - hopefully. But if a deer comes all the way onto the porch to eat them and I'm home to see it, I might count it as a fair trade. Ella won't. She still hasn't forgiven them for eating her sunflowers last year.

Okra and Zucchini

I decided to plant the rest of the vegetables in the bags of potting soil instead of tilling up our nice red clay back yard. I read that you can do this, so it's a real thing, but we'll see what happens. These are next to the fence in the other spot that looks like it stays sunny all day. I purposely put them where a camellia bush grows on the other side of the fence, hoping that the deer will eat the camellia instead of my plants. Do deer eat camellias?


Yellow Squash

I planted 3 tomato plants, 2 bell pepper plants, a yellow squash, a zucchini, an okra, a canteloupe, and a cucumber plant. If they survive the summer and bear fruit, I'll be ecstatic and start planning a more permanent garden area than two bags of dirt on the dirt for next year. Also, I'll have to learn how to make pickles, since homemade pickles are what got me into this worm-raising, dirt-digging, plant-caring business in the first place.

The Vomit Chronicles: Sometimes It's the Dog's Fault

Monday morning found us tired and dragging this week. Ella woke up with the barking cough, the pollen having finally caught up with her, so Mucinex and cough syrup and a cup of hot chocolate were in order. I got her fixed up and she finished her morning jobs while she waited on me to get Luke ready to go.

I dressed Luke and did my usual last minute running around, making sure we had Gigi Blanket and cups for everyone, and that all the rats had been brushed out of their hairs. Since I had told them several times that were about load up the car, they were both standing ready at the door.

Then I heard the gag.

My spidey sense perked up and Luke started to cry. He gagged again as I swooped and scooped him to the kitchen floor like the super hero that I play on TV. Because they are well-trained vomiters, he leaned over and puked on the floor, just missing his shoes. Bless him; I didn't even have to change his clothes.

When he was finished, I wiped his face and hands and asked him, "What happened? Do you have junk in your throat?" (That's what we call sinus drainage, of which we've all had plenty.) He shook his head and said, in his saddest voice, "Noooo. Someone poooooooped!"

Well, that explained it. Since we were all ready to walk out the door to load the car, and not one of us had pooped, it had to be the dog, who was also waiting to go out for her last potty of the morning. I said, "Did Georgia poot?" He nodded emphatically, "Yes!"

I cleaned up the vomit and we finally got on our way. I was late to work, of course, but it was okay because I texted my boss to let him know:

"Running a little late. The dog farted on Luke so he threw up as we were walking out the door and traffic sucks. Happy Monday."

By the time I got to the office, The Vomiting Ropers and Their Stinking Dog were infamous.

Our Little Wise One

Like the rest of us, Luke has an opinion about everything, but he has really developed is own brand of wisdom lately. It seems to be a bit of practicality mixed with observation and a dash of heart for good measure. I find it very amusing.

As we were riding around in the car last weekend, Ella told me that she had a red thing on her toe and it hurt. Before I could respond, Luke chimed in helpfully, "Oh, you just need-a bite it off." That's what he does when he has a hangnail, or any bit of finger or toenail really. He's a compulsive nail biter. I don't ever have to trim his nails.

At some point over the last few days, he explained this to me about my recent renaming: "Ma? That what a boy says. Ma." Then Ella followed with, "A girl says 'Mother'," in her very best Amber (from Sofia the First) impersonation.

As I was getting him out of the tub Monday night, he asked if he could bring his dinosaurs to bed with him. We gathered them up, dried them with the towel, and took them to his room. While I was getting his diaper, he informed me, knowledgably, "Dinosaurs don't wear biabers. They have tails." Too true.

When I unloaded him from the car after work one day, he told me he needed to tell me a secret. I expected a fake belch in my ear since that's the latest thing they do to amuse themselves, but instead he whispered, "Thank you God for Mommy; she's a sweet mommy. And thank you Jesus loves me. Amen." Be still my heart.

I'm so thankful for his kind, funny, little soul.

Ready.Set.Cure. 2013

Once again, we gathered with our family and friends to fight blood cancers at the Ready.Set.Cure. 5k organized by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society - but this time it was in celebration of remission.

His first survivor shirt.

I only decided the day before to take Georgia, so she didn't have a Lymphoma Sucks shirt, but she did sport her lime green bandana to match. Ella and Luke were excited about that part, since Georgia doesn't often wear "clothes". Though I walked as fast as I could, I still think I was too slow for her. She's quite competitive; she wanted to run. During the race, I was thinking I should have sent her with Uncle Dale, but then she collapsed under the picnic table, after wading in the stream and having a bagel and a cup of water, and I remembered that she is nearly nine. Even if she thinks she can sprint a 5k, it's probably best that she doesn't.

Georgia and I at the end. 

We left the kiddos behind this time, since none of them are big enough to keep up but all of them are too big to push/pull the whole, hilly, 3.1 miles. Luke was the only one who cared about it. He has since informed me, over and over, that he is going to race next year. I believe him.

Jake, Ella, and Luke

It was a great time. We raced, we socialized, we took pictures, we ate doughnuts and bagels, and my Uncle Dale won his age bracket. 



Our Lymphoma Sucks crew.





What's in a name?

Luke: My mom said I could ride a motorcycle.
Me: Really? Who's your mom?
Luke: Gina.

Luke: My mom said I can play football.
Me: Oh? Who's your mom?
Luke: Gina.
Me: Well, who am I?
Luke: You're a little princess.

Luke: My mom said I can ride my horse.
Me: Who's your mom?
Luke: Gina.

I don't know who she is, but I'm starting to feel angry at Gina. A motorcycle?! She obviously has no regard for his safety or the safety of those around him.

I don't know where this "my mom said" thing came from either, but it's pretty cute. I like it better than when he walks through the house calling me, "Ma? Ma? Maaaa?" Dave thinks it's hilarious. I think I'm not raising him in a log cabin on the prarie so he needs to knock it off.

If "Ma" is all he's got to offer, I'd prefer he just call me Amanda - and sometimes he does.

Not-So-Perfect Life

Lest reading this blog leads anyone to believe that I have a perfect life (and I hope that's not the case because I try to be very honest), I decided to write a post dedicated to the not-so-perfect moments that happened this week. I was inpired by this article: Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life.

But first, my philosophy: I believe in looking for the good in every person, place, and thing. I'm probably too optimistic. When you read optimism here, I hope you aren't mistakenly reading perfection, because it's not perfect. I'm not perfect.

Also? My measure of perfection might be very different than yours. That's why I gave up comparing myself and my life with everyone else a long time ago. I actually am very happy with my life, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that happen on a daily basis that I wish I had done better or that I wish I didn't have to deal with.

So, here are some not so perfect moments from the week.

~ First thing Monday morning, Luke ran up to Ella to tell her excitedly about his new movie and she reared up from the couch like a beast and screamed, three inches from his face, "Noooooooooo!" It broke my heart for him (he was less affected) and it made me mad at her. All day. We are trying hard to help them facilitate a good relationship with each other, but moments like this make me feel helpless and worried. Also, her general attitude lately has been very negative - that's not necessarily new for her, but it does start to wear on me sometimes, especially when other things happen that exacerbate it.

~ It makes me absolutely nuts to get dressed in my nice clothes and have a kid wipe snot or tears or food on me before I leave for work. NUTS. There were a few mornings this week when I thought Luke was on a personal mission to do just that. Then it makes me feel even worse when I jump away from him to avoid the mess. 

~ Work is making me crazy. I'm out of my comfort zone, working on a product that I'm learning as I go, and not a single day this week has gone the way I thought it would when I got to the office in the morning. I still have not done the thing that was on the top of my list on Monday - and I'm procrastinating right now to avoid it just a little longer. I have been busy, just not busy doing what I thought I would be doing, and it's been that way for weeks.

~ I had a very enlightening conversation with Dave this week in which he pointed out my stubborn refusal to listen to him about a particular topic. It sucked when I realized how unfair I had been.

~ I'm in the middle of a body crisis. It has nothing to do with what anyone else looks like, but everything to do with how my clothes keep getting smaller. And gravity. And the absolute hideousness that is shopping for dress pants or cute shoes. Ugh.

That's enough, I think. Here's to the weekend!

Time flies and all that...

I registered Ella for kindergarten this morning.

I can't say I was unprepared for this day because I was not unprepared. Just ask Dave; he picked up the blue form from the pediatrician's office a month ago and watched it hang on the fridge for three weeks before he finally asked me the actual date for kindergarten registration. I've been prepared.

I knew it was coming. She's 4.75 years old. She turns 5 on June 25th. She's planning a ballerina birthday party, though she has until April 15th to change her mind on the theme.

I have some misgivings, mostly about how to change our morning routine and what to do about the full-time school week and extracurricular activities, but she's even reassured me about those things. She has decided to quit gymnastics after the spring session is finished; that will remove one of her extracurricular activities. Over the weekend, she asked me when she can have her own alarm clock; that partially answers my other uncertainty.

Mostly, I'm excited for her. Really excited, because she is going to love kindergarten. She is definitely ready - in all kinds of ways. And so am I, really.

But sometimes - sometimes, I have to flip through the pictures, re-read the blog posts, and remember when she was like this.

When she fit into the Johnny Jump.

When clapping was new.

When she still had to hold on to stand.

When her hair was barely long enough for a ponytail.

Because it's bittersweet - the passage of time, the business of life, the mothering and fathering of children. It's bittersweet.

Chalazion: Another Fancy Word

I recently took Luke to see a pediatric ophthalmologist (read: eye surgeon) because the stinking stye that popped up overnight on his eyelid in December is still there. Crusty and no longer swollen, but still there. At a visit to the pediatrician at the end of February, the doctor asked, "What's up with his eye?" I said, "It's that stye he had in December." Yeah, he sent me on to a specialist because it's no longer just a stye, it's a chalazion and it will need to be surgically removed. I was hoping the eye surgeon would want to try some ointment first, but no, he's passed the point where it would heal itself with or without ointment, so surgery it is.

"Chalazion" is a fancy word for a blocked oil gland in the eyelid. It is a type of stye, and it can start as a regular, old, normal, stye, but sometimes it doesn't go away. Luke's is on the upper left eyelid. It definitely hurt when it was in the stye phase, before it popped and scabbed over, and it still hurts periodically. I know it bothers him, even when it isn't hurting. It just keeps scabbing over. He knocks the scab off, and it bleeds and then scabs over again. The surgery to remove it should only take 15 minutes, and he will have general anesthesia because kids can't be still during that procedure. Obviously. I'm not sure I could be still to have that done to my eye, though I understand that for adults they just use local anesthesia (shiver and cringe). They say he'll be able to go to school the next day, but we'll see how he's feeling. He might get to wear a fun eye patch for a few hours after surgery. Please read that last sentence again with sarcasm.

Since we saw the eye surgeon a couple of weeks ago, I am no longer allowed to touch or look too closely at Luke's scabby eye. As he fends me off, he tells me insistently, "I went to the doctor! No! I went to the doctor!" We've had several discussions about the surgery, and I came to the realization soon after the doctor's appointment that we are in uncharted waters. Both kids have had surgery before, but both of them were only 21 months old at the time. This time, Luke understands a lot more about what I'm saying, and he's worried about it. At bedtime the other night, he asked me, "The doctor will take my eye and give me another one?" I explained that he's not going to take his eye away, he's just going to fix the bo-bo (Where did we ever come up with that non-word?). I talked him through the whole process again, and he responded with, "That's too stary (scary)." Poor little guy.

It will be nice to see him without a scabby eye again, and thankfully, he's first up in the OR tomorrow so his fasting will be limited to the wee hours of the morning. I fully intend to scoop him out of bed and into the car, and I hope he'll sleep until we get there. Withholding that juice cup is hard on everyone.

"No! I went to the doctor!"

Updated 4/15/2013: The surgery went smoothly, and aside from a couple of hours worth of swelling where they injected his eyelid with numbing medicine, his eye looked better than it had in months. Right after surgery. It was amazing. He layed around most of the surgery day and woke up bouncing off the walls the next morning. The actual eye ball stayed goopy and red - almost like he had pink eye - for about five days, but I used the ointment they gave me until it was gone and it healed up nicely. At this point, several weeks later, there is just a small pink spot where the chalazion used to be; it looks great.

Around the House

It's been a while since I shared a random list of things they say, but I've collected a few recently that I want to make sure I remember. Enjoy.

"If he's naming his dog after you, it must be pretty serious." - Dave, in response to Ella telling us that her friend, who is a boy, got a new puppy and named it Ella. She denies that he is her boyfriend, put Dave does make a good point.

"I makin' songs." - This was Luke's response when I told him it was time to take his drumset back to his bedroom so he could go to bed. He makes lots of songs, all the time, on whatever instrument he can find, but I believe he may be partial to drums. As I carried him, kicking, away from the drums this morning, he told me his legs were his drum sticks. I foresee an upgrade to a real drumset in the not-so-distant future.

"Sometimes in life, you have to have a baby brother." - Words of wisdom from Ella. I think she's finally accepted the fact that he's never going to be a sister.

"I a fast boy. I run fast in my shoes and take off and fly! I a super fast boy!" - That's Luke Roper, Super Fast Boy. He also has a super hero Fast Button built into the top of his hand that he occasionally pushes so he can run super fast.

At 6:30 one recent Saturday morning, Ella tore open her bedroom door and marched down the hall to demand, "Where's Daddy?" I peeled open my eyelids to see her standing there, almost impatiently tapping her foot, with a kindergarten math workbook in one hand and a giant pencil in the other. I told her I thought he was downstairs. She said, "We're going to do some math," turned on her heel and marched away. I am equally proud and reverent of that child's nerd tendencies. Also? I'm ecstatic that she already loves math. She told me that math is her favorite subject in kindergarten. She doesn't even start kindergarten until August. I hope she has better luck with geometry than I did.

"Hey! Hey, Mommy! Hey, it's me, Wuke Boper!" - Luke, demanding my attention. I wasn't aware that I was being terribly inattentive, so I'm not sure if he just needed to identify himself, or I just didn't hear him the first few times. Either way, he's Wuke Boper.

"What are we going to do when they are teenagers?" - Dave's response after he planned, purchased, and cooked our supper two nights in a row. He finally understood that we really do eat as many groceries as I buy every week (a lot). I guess that's something you just can't really fathom until you plan, purchase, and cook the food, then see how much is left.  

PET Scans

About a month ago, as Papa and I were loading the kids into the car after work and talking about when Dave's next PET scan would happen, Ella asked me something to the extent of, "Does Daddy have pets?" I told her that he does not have any pets other than Georgia and Gypsy, and "PET" is the name of the test he has to do to see if his cancer is still gone.

She's my daughter, so she asked, "What does it mean?"
I said, "I'll tell you what it means. Are you ready?"
She nodded.
"Positron Emission Tomography." (Except I stumbled over the T word because I can never remember that.)
Her eyes glazed over, so I went on.
"It's a test where they give him special medicine, then roll him through a big scanner and watch how the medicine works in his body. If there is cancer in his body, they can see it when they scan him."
That seemed to be a satisfactory explanation for her.

Since then, I've answered that question from other people and a variety of other questions about the PET scan, so I thought I should blog about it.

Positron Emission Tomography - those are fancy words. It's a nuclear imaging test used to detect cancer (and other things, I'm sure, but primarily cancer). Some doctors poo-poo it, but oncologists believe it's golden - and for the price of it, it should be. It works like this.

The patient has to follow a no-carb diet for the last meal prior to the test (be it supper or breakfast, depending on test time), and eat/drink nothing but water for the five hours prior to the scan. It's not as horribly, hideous as fasting for a glucose tolerance test because you can still drink water (ahem), but nothing makes you want to eat a pile of noodles like being told you can't have carbs. Luckily, I just happened to walk by the calendar as I was cooking supper last night and noticed that the PET scan was scheduled for this morning, so I had to break the bad news to Dave that he couldn't eat the mac and cheese. His expression was positively combative as he demanded, "Why?!" I reminded him of the PET scan. He insisted he would be hungry if he couldn't eat the mac and cheese. I handed him a bowl of salad to go with his chicken and green beans. He finished the salad and said he wasn't hungry anymore. I packed a pile of mac and cheese for his lunch after the scan. Ordinarily, all of us would go carb-less on the night before the PET scan, but I honestly forgot this time.

Once he gets to the PET center this morning, he will be escorted to a little room with a sweet recliner. The tech will inject radioactive glucose into a vein in his hand or arm, and he'll kick back in the recliner for an hour to let the glucose move through his body. After an hour, he goes into the scan room, lies on the table, and gets scanned. That part takes about 45 minutes. I've only gotten a glance of the scanner because I'm not allowed in there, but he says it's like a CT scan but bigger.

The kind of scan he gets is actually a PET/CT combo, which is common. As the tech and the oncologist explained to us before the first one, the radioactive dye will "light up" when the body metabolizes the glucose, and cancer metabolizes it differently/faster than normal body tissue. They are watching to see what parts light up. There are parts of the body they expect to light up on the scan - like the brain and the heart - because of how they metabolize glucose, but they are looking for other parts that light up that would indicate cancer. They use the images collected in the scan and reconstruct 3D images of the body, then a radiologist reads the scan. It takes a few days to get the results.

Here's a picture of a whole body scan I found on Wikipedia, where you can read a lot more of the technical stuff about PET scans if you are a nerd like me.

That's basically it. It's a 2 hour process, and I think the hardest part for Dave is adhering to the diet.

Updated: The PET scan was clean and he graduated to the next phase of follow up care so he will start having scans every six months now instead of every three.

Flip Floppin'

We spent a fantastically beautiful weekend outside, starting with Ella's first soccer games Saturday morning.

We played in the park Saturday afternoon, but I didn't bring the camera. It was warm enough that Georgia needed a swim in the creek to cool off. We cooked on the grill and played ball  in the yard in the evening.

Sunday afternoon wasn't quite as pretty, but it was still warm so we played outside until we were tired of wiping the gnats out of our eyes.

This is one of our modified balance beams. When I asked Luke to step away from the wall, he said, "This one?" and proceeded to show me that I don't have to worry about him walking on it anymore. I shouldn't; I watched him walk on the regulation beam at gymnastics all by himself this week. Instead, I'll only worry when he's riding that duck and not paying attention to the edge.  

This is Ella performing the Rombo Circus. As usual, I'm not sure what that is, but I'm supposed to take her to practice on one side of the driveway and watch her perform on the other. It appears to be some combination of cheering and dancing.  

Gypsy adopted her warm weather sleeping spot when she got tired of playing with Luke. He thought it was hilarious that she was in the flower pot. 

 Luke played his horn for us while we walked down to the creek to let Georgia take a dip.

Luke shed his flip-flops for the warm weather. 

I would apologize for my unpainted toes, but really, you are just lucky that the last of the old plum colored polish I put on there in October finally chipped off. Ella's little flip-flopped feet were too cute not to share.

I absolutely adore the first beautiful, shorts and flip-flops, and grill cooking weekend of the year.

When Ella was Lost

It took 4.75 years for me to lose one of them, but I finally did. It was quite a feat, considering that the one I lost is the one I would have voted Most Likely to Never Be Separated from Mommy.

Luke? He'd be easy to lose. Unleashing that child requires constant vigilance. Ella? Well, let's just say there's a reason I recently spilled hot tea on her head, and it's not because I'm careless in the kitchen. She is the Moon to my Earth. Blessedly, the gravitational pull has relaxed quite a bit over the last couple of years, but I still don't have to worry about her wandering too far ahead of me in public places. Half the time I have to force the child to go into the bathroom stall without me while I stand directly on the other side and wait for her. She just doesn't wander freely in public. Blessedly.

We went on a play date to the zoo over the weekend with another mom and her little girls. The other girls went into the lorikeet exhibit to feed the birds, and Ella decided to try it, too. She followed them in and their mom helped her by holding a bird on her hand while it drank out of Ella's nectar cup. Luke accompanied us to the zoo, but he could not abide any lorikeets that day. I had to take him out of there, so I told Ella to stay with her friends' mom because I was going to take Luke outside to wait. She agreed and I left through the Exit door, on the opposite side of the exhibit.

Luke and I waited and watched, and we finally saw the mom and two girls come out to wash their hands, but no Ella. I asked where she was and the mom told me that she got scared when one of the birds landed on her and she decided to leave the exhibit.

Immediately, I knew that she had gone back in the Entrance door and into the little store, and that she must be freaking out because she didn't find me there. I hurried Luke around the building as quickly as one can hurry a meandering toddler, and poked my head in the door just as one of zoo employees was telling another employee, "This is Ella and her mom is lost." I said, "I'm Ella's mom!" The employee asked Ella if I was, and let her come to me when she confirmed. She was very upset.

We stepped to the side and I knelt down in front of her to hug her and let her cry. When she calmed down I said, "A bird landed on you and you got scared." She nodded. "You went back inside and couldn't find me." She nodded. "You thought I was lost and told the lady who works here." She nodded. "You were really scared." She nodded. I hugged her harder and promised her I had not left her; I was just waiting at the other door. She took a deep breath, a drink of water, and she was ready to continue her play date.

As I was telling Dave about it later, I realized how very proud I was of her handling of the situation. She and I talked about it again that evening and she told me that when she realized I wasn't in the store, she found the lady who worked there and told her her name and that she had lost her mom. She said the lady told her her name, too. I reiterated that she did exactly what she was supposed to do in that kind of situation and that I was very proud of her. 

She was never really lost, but she absolutely thought she was and for a few brief moments between realizing what had happened and seeing her with my own eyes, I had The Fear. I'm so glad she remembered all of the instructions we've given her in case she gets separated from us.

Nine Things I Learned from Food Network

I was chatting with someone about cooking the other day, and I mentioned that I learned how to cut an avocado from watching Food Network. That made me think about other things I've learned from Food Network.

I love to cook. I love to watch cooking shows, and back in the Before Kids time of my life, that's what I used to do while I drank my coffee on the weekend mornings. I've learned a whole lot about cooking from Food Network, so I made a list.

Nine Things I Learned from Food Network

1. How to cut an avocado - Slice it down the middle, around the pit, then separate the halves and scoop out the pit. Score each half lengthwise and crosswise into cubes while it's still in the peel, then scoop the whole thing out with a spoon. It's so easy.

2. Olive Oil - Or EVOO, as Rachel Ray rebranded it. I use it for everything. I keep vegetable oil in the house for brownies and the very rare occasion that I fry something, but olive oil is my go-to cooking oil. Also, it's very moisturizing so I've added it to glycerin soap and I used to to get rid of Ella's cradle cap when she was a baby. I didn't learn that from Food Network, but had I not learned about EVOO before then, I probably never would have tried it.

3. Popping garlic - Ever tried to peel a clove of garlic? It sucks. Rachel Ray  taught me to smash it with the flat side of the knife first, and the peel basically just falls off.

4. Chicken stock - You can make quick meal taste like it has been cooking all day with chicken stock (or beef, I guess). It really works. I have a yummy, easy marinara recipe using chicken stock that tastes like an Italian grandma cooked it. Chicken stock is also a good replacement for water if you want to make the flavor richer, or wine if you don't have any on hand or are opposed to cooking with alcohol.

5. Knives - Rachel Ray gave me the courage to use the big vegetable knife. It's my favorite one; I use it almost daily. I can't fathom how I'm supposed to chop anything if I work in someone else's kitchen and they don't have the big knife. The chopping is my favorite part of cooking.

6. How to cook pasta - All of the women in my life cook pasta by adding oil to the water, but Rachel Ray (Yes, I love her.) taught me to leave out the oil and had a heaping helping of salt instead. It's the bomb. Side note: Even Rachel's mom puts oil in her pasta water, so I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't do it that way anymore.

7. You can grill anything - Bobby Flay opened up a whole new world of grilling for us, and during the summer months we grill everything.

8. What leeks are and how to wash them - Not just leeks, which I have cooked a few times, but all kinds of vegetables that I didn't know existed or that I was intimidated by because I didn't know what to do with them. Really, not just vegetables, all kinds of food. We eat a wide variety of food in our house, from classic American to Italian to Mexican to Chinese to Indian to Thai to pub style and other things in between, thanks in part to Food Network.

9. How to prepare eggplant - Before you cook it, peel it, slice it, and soak it in a bowl of cold, salty water for 15ish minutes. That makes it less spongy so it doesn't soak up all the oil or sauce or whatever you are cooking it in that would make it soggy.

I don't get to watch much Food Network these day, but I do pin new recipes like crazy on Pinterest. Then I spend a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon prepping our meals for the week so we can eat well, even on the crazy nights. The meal planning and prep has become one of my favorite jobs lately.