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.

Grateful

It's been one year since we found out that Dave had cancer.

One year since his surgery.

One year since he stopped using tobacco.

One year since our priorities shifted from the trivial to the important.

One year since we opened our eyes to God working all around us.

One year since normal readjusted itself.

One year ago today.

Today, I am grateful for Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals.

"'For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,' says the Lord." - Jeremiah 30:17

Reflections from Dave

A year ago today, at this very hour, I was laying in the Shelby Emergency Room desperately seeking relief from a horrible stomach pain.  Just a few minutes later, around nine or so, I would be informed that I would be admitted to the hospital.  They gave me some pain medicine and the relief was instant.

When I agreed to go to the emergency room - at my wife's insistence - I never thought they would keep me.  I thought they would just think I was weak and dumb and would send me home.  I hoped they would not and had actually decided if the ER docs did send me home I would walk out of the hospital and come right back in to the ER.  The pain was intense and unbearable.  I remember telling Amanda, "There's something inside of me that has to come out." 

 

Little did I know that I would be in the hospital for ten days, undergo a major surgery, receive a cancer diagnosis and be discharged with  the promise of chemotherapy and the fear of dying young. 

 

February 28.  A day that will be ingrained in my memory forever.  A rebirth.  And for all of the trauma, uncertainty, nausea and pain, in retrospect I can honestly say that the past year has been one of the best of my life.  I have learned to put things (work)  into perspective, to enojy free time, to cherish my wonderful wife, children and family and to appreciate the mere fact that I get to be home with them at night.

But most of all, I have faced one of my greatest fears - the ominous "C" word - and so far, won.  I can honestly say that life is better today than February 28, 2012.  And even with all the challenges of the past year, it has been one of the best of my life.  What a tremendous blessing!  Praise be to God! 

Oh February, you never fail to amaze me.

February is usually a ridiculous month for us. All of Ella's check up appointments fall during the month and there's always illness. Our house has seen strep throat, three sinus infections, and two ear infections in the last four weeks, and that includes me. I might have had a bit a bronchitis, too ("Ain't nobody got time for that!"), but whatever. The drugs were the same either way.

After all those doctor's appointments were over and antibiotics were underway, I had jury duty for the first time. And, I was actually picked to serve on a jury - which I'm still doing. They say the average case in this county lasts three days. Tomorrow will be day three. Dave is loving it because he wants to know what goes on in the jury room. I told him I'd take good notes. It has definitely been interesting.

Between doctors appointments and jury service, I've been doing a lot of watching and listening and waiting. I have some musings.

What does it say about me as a person that I felt profound relief when I overheard the doctor at the after hours clinic say that the little girl who was in the waiting room with us because she had been throwing up for days likely had appendicitis? Nothing good, especially given that my child was the contagious one with strep throat, but the longer I parent these children, the more creeped out I am by doctor's offices. I nearly lost my cool with Luke that same night because he kept getting on the floor in the exam room. Ick. I know what stomach viruses do in this house, and I'd take strep throat over that any day of the week.

On more than one occasion in the last three weeks, I've felt like cattle being shuttled around here and there, but most especially during the jury selection process. Come in, go out, take a break, hurry back, and wait. And American Family Care? Not much better than jury selection. I wouldn't have been there if my actual doctor's office worked a full week, but they don't and I needed to get myself checked before the weekend, so there I was questioning if that doctor even saw anything with that light she shined in the approximate vicinity of my mouth hole. Then the nurse came in with two shots and, I kid you not, I had to ask her, "Do we know what's wrong with me yet?" Cattle.

Having had shots in my love handles now, I can honestly say I'd rather just drop my pants and take it in the butt cheek. Why the love handles?

Ella doesn't wait well. As we were waiting for the pediatrician to check out Luke last Friday afternoon, she informed me that we had been waiting for 17 minutes and that "this [was] the worst thing that ever happened to [her] life." It was longer than 17 minutes, but I'm glad that's the worst thing to ever happen to her.

I'm convinced that all bailiffs are old. No offense to bailiffs, but every one I've ever met is old enough to be my grandfather. Our bailiff/concierge for the week spent some time telling us about how many pacemakers he's had, and about some of the more gruesome criminal trials he's sat through. I was encouraged to know that the cases disturbed him because I was quite disturbed while listening to his recounting.

Apparently wearing a badge that says "Juror" around the court house gives you status. I didn't have to put my purse in the bin to run through the x-ray machine after lunch today because of my badge. That makes me uncomfortable. I want to know that everyone in the courthouse had their bags and persons checked. I've read a lot of John Grisham; I know how suspect jurors can be.

Jury service isn't nearly as glamorous as Grisham makes it seem.

Nine Things I've Learned in Nine Years of Marriage

Dave and I have been married for nine years today. I decided to commemorate this anniversary with a list of nine things I've learned in my marriage.

Nine Things I've Learned in Nine Years of Marriage

1. Putting God in the center - in faith and in practice - makes our relationship stronger. We have lived a lot of things together, big and small, that could have torn us apart but we keep finding ourselves bound closer together. 

2. We make a good team. My attention to detail and his brute force combine so that we work very well together. Also, knowing each other well enough to know when to lend a hand helps, too. I have no idea how many times he has been about to lose his head over a poorly written instruction manual that I helped him sort out before he broke something. Or, how many times I needed him to hammer, tighten, or pry something that I just couldn't get done with my weak hands. There have been many, many occasions when we've rescued each other from DIY purgatory with our respective skills. It's not just home improvement; it's most things. We work well together.

3.  We can argue without having a full blown, ugly fight. It took us a while to figure this one out, but it is possible, and necessary. I've written about it before.

4. When I start to dislike him, I need to make some time for myself. Sometimes, he starts to grate on my nerves and there is nothing he can do that's right. Luckily, I realized years ago that what I need to do when that happens is retreat, because it's my attitude that needs adjusting, not his. Oh, he does occasionally get in a funk that requires an attitude adjustment (and that usually means he needs a break, too), but when I'm well-balanced, his funk doesn't irritate me. Also, it's not my job to adjust his attitude.

5. Kids ratchet everything up a notch. They make it louder, messier, busier, and crazier. If it's good, they make it better. If it's struggling, they make it harder. Plain and simple.

6. Words are powerful. They can tear down or build up, and the more intimate you are with someone, the more powerful the words you use with each other become. He's my life partner; I don't want to hurt him with my words.

7. He bakes better cookies than me. It's just the truth. I do most of the cooking because I like to cook and because he likes my cooking better than his own, but I will burn a cookie like it's my job. That's why cookies are his job.

8. Small, thoughtful gestures are a big deal (and he is so much better at this than me). Sometimes he fills my car with gas, or turns on the space heater in the bathroom so it will be warm when I get up to shower, or brings me something silly from the store just because he knows it will make me happy. He's really good at those things, and it makes me feel loved.

9. The better I know him, the more I love him. He's my favorite.

Nothing says "I love you" like...

Stompeez!

We decided to go candy-less for Valentine's Day because our candy bowl has been fruitful and multiplied. Seriously, we're supposed to be down to the crap candy by Valentine's Day, but we're not. What is happening in there when we sleep at night?

Also, they have parties at school today, and we made white-chocolate-dunked-candy-sprinkled-birthday-cake-creme Oreos for them to give to their friends. The smell alone was enough to make my teeth ache. We didn't need anymore sweet things for Valentine's day, so we gave them Stompeez. Ella has only been asking for them since August. To say that she was excited is an understatement.

Luke loves his, too, but mainly because they are frogdragonalligators and they are his very own house shoes. His foot isn't big enough to make their mouths chomp yet, but he doesn't care. He was the only one who could be still long enough for a picture.



My Littlest Valentine

Isn't it funny how little kid excitement can suck you into a made up "holiday" that you previously swore off? Ahem.

Sometimes Pinterest Irritates Me

I mostly triple-heart love Pinterest, especially the way it helps me do my meal planning every week, but sometimes it just makes me shake my head. These are tonight's offenders.

1. THIS is a muffin top?

If this is a muffin top, I'm packing half a dozen.

2. DIY car fabric redo for a custom look? I'm happy when my car isn't a rolling ocean of goldfish and Kool-Aid stickyness, and especially when it doesn't smell like stinking cheese.

In the words of Sweet Brown: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

That is all. You're welcome.

Chore Charts are Changing Our Lives

Ella has been helping me with chores around the house since she was about 18 months old, but in the last year she's become really capable of doing some things without assistance. She can clean up her room, make her bed, sort her dirty laundry, put away the clean laundry, get herself dressed, brush her own teeth, use the bathroom, clear her plate from the table, etc. As she's become more capable, my expectations of her pulling her weight in our family have increased. I believe that every member of our family should contribute to the work that keeps our house neat and peaceful. Once they become able to pick up their socks off the floor and put them in the laundry basket, it's no longer my job. I still help them with these things as they are learning, of course, but I fully expect that they will do these things themselves as they get older. As members of our family, they have a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of our house.

Ella is usually very willing to do things herself and quite helpful around the house. However, the morning rush to get her out the door had become very tedious, regularly breaking down into negative interactions for both of us. The Barbie mess on her bedroom floor had gotten completely out of control. The amount of nagging I've been doing lately is ridiculous, and she doesn't respond well to it (does anyone?). She doesn't like to be told what to do and I don't like stepping on Barbie junk and verbally dragging her through the morning routine. The more I tell her to put her shoes on, the longer she resists. She's just like her parents in that way. 

I stewed over how to solve this problem in a way that works for both of us. I need her to get up and dressed in the mornings without me nagging. I need her to straighten her room so that we can walk in there (and make it more inviting to be in there, or even have the door open). She needs autonomy - specifically, space and time to do the things that are expected of her without me hovering.

I had a chat with her so that we could problem solve together. We agreed that I would wake her up more gently by lying down and talking to her for a few minutes while she wakes up, and she would pick out her clothes the night before so they are ready and waiting to be put on in the mornings. That improved things quite a bit, but it didn't address the messy room.

After sending her in to clean up her room, then sending her in to try again, I locked her out of the room Sunday afternoon and cleaned it myself. I realized that the mess had become overwhelming for her. She really didn't know where to start cleaning it up. She had done most of what I asked, but the Barbie's were still partying all over the place - making it feel so much messier than it actually was. While I cleaned, I thought. (Because what else is there to do while you clean?) Then the solution hit me. She needed a list.

Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake, ya'll. She'd been telling me she needs a list since the one time I made her one when I needed her to do some things on the weekend and I didn't want her to stop playing to do it right then. She told me last week when she was so proud of herself for filling up her sticker chart at school because she did all of her jobs without being told. She needed a list of jobs at home.

I finished cleaning her room and I made two lists for her and taped them on her bedroom wall. (How do you make a list for a kid that can't read? With pictures. Her lists have the words and the pictures because I intend for them to stay on the wall for a while and she's learning to read.) I didn't say anything to her about them, I just waited until she found them. When she did, I explained that they are her lists of jobs to do each morning when she gets up and each evening before bed. I read them to her so she would know what they said (and be able to translate my pitiful drawing).

The child was so stinking excited about her lists that she has already made me amend them to add additional tasks. The lists have been up for three days now, and life has been so much easier. The room has stayed cleaner, she's getting up without a fight, and getting ready before it's time to leave. While I fully expect that some days will be better than others and sometimes I'll revert back to nagging her through the morning routine, I'm hoping that we can make this a lasting change in our house.

These are Ella's lists.

Morning Jobs
1. Make your bed.
2. Get dressed.
3. Put on your socks and shoes.
4. Use the potty.
5. Brush your hair. (her addition)

Bedtime Jobs
1. Put your shoes in the rack.
2. Put away the Barbies and their stuff.
3. Put away other toys and books.
4. Take your dirty clothes to the laundry room.
5. Pick out your clothes for tomorrow.
6. Take your medicine. (her addition)
7. Brush your teeth and potty. (her addition)

Will it work for Luke? I have no idea, but he is very interested in her lists. He might demand that I make him a list, too.

Luke's First Haircut

We finally did it. We had the man-cub's hair cut. Though I loved his wild hair, it had gotten a bit unruly, even for me. He'd started shoving it out of his eyes during gymnastics class and it couldn't decide if it was curly or straight.
We weren't ready for the close cut yet, so it's still a bit unruly but much neater looking than before. I'm pleased with it, and he seems to be, too.

The Evolution

He had a full head of soft, black baby hair at birth.
(That's Maunt Becca holding him.)

At his first birthday party.




At his second birthday party.



Just before the haircut. He was nervous.

After.

We saved the curls for his keep box. I kind of hate that it probably won't go in a ponytail anymore so that he can sport the West Coast surfer look with his sweat pants and flip flops, but it was time.

Monkey Love

We took an impromptu trip to the zoo today, and saw a mama orangutan with her baby.

Mama and Baby

Every one of us was in awe of them. Baby was sleeping the whole time and mama only moved to kiss her baby's face, over and over again. She could have been me holding my sleeping babies for nap and kissing all over their faces. It was amazing, definitely my favorite thing at the zoo today day.

WOHMing

If you aren't familiar with Internet Mommy Jargon, WOHM means "work outside the home mom." There's also WAHM (work at home mom) and SAHM (stay at home mom). There's lots and lots of online discussion, often heated, about the virtues of all three. I'm not interested in debating which is better because I already know what is best for us. I can't say what's best for anyone else.

I shared an article on my Facebook page this week about things you shouldn't say to a working mom (because people make a lot of assumptions). That article and some other discussions I've had recently led me to spend some time thinking about my personal situation and how I got here.

I am a WOHM. I have a full-time job doing something that I genuinely enjoy. I have a work situation that is flexible enough for me to work around the kids' schedules so I can still be at school events and doctors appointments. I'm at a place in my home life where the kids are a little more self-sufficient and generally happy in the evenings.

It wasn't always that way. Going back to work after my maternity leave with Ella was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I did not want to leave her. I missed her with my whole being while I was away from her, and the evenings were rough because she was tired and ready for bed when I got home. For a while, I longed to be a stay-at-home-mom. Then we settled into the routine, and as she got a little older, the evenings got easier. I got busy with work and started enjoying it again. That's when the guilt settled in. I felt like I was supposed to want to be home with her, but I really enjoyed my job and the adult interaction it brought to my days.

Still, throughout my pregnancy with Luke, I tried to figure out a way to have more time at home. I thought I would need it with a second baby, and I thought they would need it. I very nearly quit my job to take a part-time job close to home. Thankfully, that didn't work out. During my maternity leave with Luke, I accepted some truths about myself.

1. I need forced social situations like work and church. I am truly an introvert. I struggle to create my own social situations, but work gives me a place to be social and have adult interaction.

2. I need more balance than being at home all the time gives me. After having a baby attached to my body in some form or fashion for most of the day or meeting the constant noise and needs of kids all day long, I need the time to sit quietly at my desk by myself. This need for alone time is part of the introversion.

3. I need to have something in my life that is my own thing. Part of my preparation for Luke's birth was enrolling Ella in preschool because I wanted her to have an activity that was just for her once he was born. I realized during my second maternity leave that I also need that. It helps me remember that before I was Mommy, I was Amanda. One of these days, they will be grown and living their own lives, and I need to make sure I remember that I am someone other than Mom when that happens.

4. I need to contribute to the family income - for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that preschool and extracurricular activities are important to me, and I couldn't justify those things if I didn't work.

When I went back to work after Luke was born, I went with a better understanding of what I need to be the mom my kids deserve, and I left the guilt behind. I desperately need the balance that working outside of my home brings me. I don't have as much time with them as I would if I stayed home, but I feel like they get a better me in the time I do have with them. I miss them when I'm at work and some mornings it's really hard to leave, but I appreciate the time we have together more because of that. I love weekends and vacations when I get to focus soley on them and Dave, and I love going back to work after those things to have some time for me.

Sometimes it really is hard to juggle everything, especially when the kids were babies, but right now I'm very happy with my work-family situation. The kids are happy, too. They love going to Grandmother's house every day and they love preschool. We've built a village for them and it's working really well.

I work for a lot of reasons, and one of them is simply because it's what I need to be a better mother.

Snakes and Snails and Little Boy Tales

The man-cub - that's how I like to think of him now because his half-nakedness, jungle hair, and enthusiastic boyness remind me of Mogely from The Jungle Book - seems to have fully transitioned from baby to little boy.

He plays like a boy. I guess he might play like a girl, too, but he plays very differently than his sister. They both have vivid imaginations, orchestrating entire worlds of play around themselves, but he becomes the characters and acts out the world. He is Mickey Mouse flying the Toon Plane to rescue Santa from Mistletoe Mountain. He is the circus magician making bunnies disappear all over the house. He is a dog playing fetch in the aisles of Target (literally, on hands and knees, picking up the toys with his mouth). He's a football/basketball/soccer player. He's a gymnast. He's a doctor and a bear and a shark and a snake handler.

Man-cub has talked about snakes so much lately that I dreamed the other night that someone gave him TWO for his birthday. One of them was venomous and I was trying to get it away from him before it could bite him, but I was afraid to kill it because my snake-loving sister-in-law was there and I thought she would be mad at me. I really, really don't like snakes at all. I can keep my head about it if there is one in the yard, but I do not like them. Some of my most horrible nightmares are about snakes - bone-chilling, sweat-popping nightmares that tell me I need to get a handle on my stress level ASAP. That my sweet little boy child seems to be so fascinated with them right now makes me very uncomfortable. If he asks me for a snake one day, the answer will have to be, "Not while you live in my house."

On top of being a ball of frenetic energy, he is disarmingly honest and cheeky. It sometimes makes discipline difficult. I can see him being a kid who approaches punishment matter-of-factly so he can get on with his business. Case in point: This morning, he was walking around on the bed and I asked him, "Do you know what happens when you stand on the bed?" He said, "Uh-huh." I said, "What?" He said, "Time out."

I was thinking more along the lines of, "You'll fall and break your head," but I guess he wanted to be spared the lecture. He didn't have a time out. He did prove that sometimes there is more than one right answer.

On 34 Year Olds and Body Image

Yesterday, Luke decided he likes to be shirtless. He was shirtless when I got to Grandmother's after work, and he refused to wear a shirt to bed (he did put one on at the table because that's one of the rules). Dave and I were standing in the kitchen last night at bedtime, discussing this new quirk and trying to decide why he is suddenly a shirtless little boy child. Dave doesn't go shirtless often, usually only in the dead of summer while we are sitting around the back porch pool.

He used to sleep shirtless, and I asked him why he started wearing a tshirt to bed. He flippantly commented something about covering his "fat belly". Ella happened to have joined us in the kitchen by this point, so she chimed right in with this little nugget of wisdom.

Ella: (very matter-of-factly)Daddy, how old are you?
Dave: 34
Ella: (reassuringly) Oh, yeah, because 34s are fat.

At which point I commenced uncontrollably giggling. Then she went on to elaborate that 55s have bigger bellies. The good news is, she hasn't yet attached any arbitrary value to fat vs. thin, and the way she said it was very positive, even a bit encouraging.

Helping them develop a healthy body image is something that is important to me and Dave, and given her postive perspective of "fat," I think we are doing okay with that. However, I also think this proved that we need to be more conscious of the way we think and talk about our bodies, because she is paying attention. I've never heard her use the word "fat" to describe a person before last night. We are careful about the words we use when we talk to them about their bodies, and about healthy eating habits, choosing healthy foods, getting exercise, and wearing clothes that fit appropriately. We generally model healthy eating and an active lifestyle, but I think we also need to model a healthy body image- even if we have to fake it sometimes.

Right now, at 4 and 2, they are very comfortable with their bodies. I hope they will always be.

Good Riddance, Teething Fairy

Our Teething Fairy has finally left on her long awaited sabbatical. I hope she's resting peacefully on a tropical island somewhere. She best not show her face in our house for at least a year, and she's only welcome back if she's accompanied by her sweet sister, the Tooth Fairy.

Luke's last molar broke the skin over the weekend so he finally has his full set of teeth. He was still grinding them when he woke up this morning, because the molars are still pushing their way in, but he did turn down my offer of Motrin, so I know the hard work is done. He has also slept much better for the last two nights. Thank all the good things for that.

Look at all those pearly white teeth.

My aching neck and back and hip are glad to be back in their own bed. It will probably take a while for my fuzzy brain to recover from the past month's worth of molar-growing work, but that's okay, because it is finished. I feel like I should throw a party for these teeth. I think this set hit me the hardest since Ella grew her very first two. Is it because I'm older? Maybe. I'm sure it's because Luke had already started sleeping through the night during the fall, so these Teething Fairy wake ups just felt harder.

I'll say it again: I'm so glad I don't remember growing teeth. It's a harrowing experience to watch; he's been pitiful. Now that it's done, I'm hoping his stuffy nose and the stye on his eyelid will clear up. He busted his lip over the weekend, so between that and the stye, he's been walking around looking like he just got out of a cage fight.

So long Teething Fairy - I won't miss you.

Potty Training Blues

Luke has decided to learn how to use the potty. Actually, he started this venture last Labor Day, and he's sort of piddled with it (pun intended) since then. It picked up steam again over Christmas, then fizzled when we went back to our normal schedule, only to flare up again Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church. I'm starting to think he's serious now.

Perhaps you can tell I'm less than enthusiastic? I am.. less than enthusiastic. I can't wait until I don't have to buy diapers anymore, but I don't love potty training. It's a lot of work and I'm pretty bad at it.

He's driving this project, which is just fine with me.

My philosophy is: The more he can do for himself, the smoother it will go, so I'll just follow his lead.

My failure is: Once he becomes interested, I forget the philosophy and try to control all the things in an effort to avoid mess and force his success.

It goes something like this past Sunday.

Luke: I wanna wear choo-choo underpants.
Me: We are about to leave for church, so you can wear a Diego pull-up. We'll tell Mrs. Kim, and you can try to use the potty during Sunday school.

After church, I breathed a sigh of relief that he had momentarily forgotten about the choo-choo underpants and put a diaper on him for nap.

After nap...
Luke: I need to potty. I wanna wear choo-choo underpants.
Me. (assembling the potty because the bottom half is also our step stool) Ok. You sit on the potty, I'll get the underpants.
Luke: (sits for approximately 15 seconds) I all done.
Me: No, you aren't. You didn't do anything. If you are going to wear underpants, you have to tee-tee in the potty.
Luke: I all done.

Continue that conversation for another 7 minutes until I give up and put the underpants on him. Unfortunately, I can't control his bodily functions, nor can I magically make him able to control them.

TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER, as he climbed into his chair at the table to practice cutting with scissors, he forgot he was wearing underpants (and so did I) and peed in them.

Cue Crazy Mommy swooping in with a swiftness to contain the mess and get him undressed and on the potty in hopes that he'll finish there and make a connection. Because he still cannot make himself pee on command - not his own command, and certainly not mine. He did not.

Enter the second pair of underpants. He wanted to watch football, so I brought the potty to the living room.

Then, 20 minutes later without my prompting, he jumped out of his chair, exclaiming, "I need to tee-tee!" and ran to the potty, pulled down his own pants, and sat on it. Yes, breakthrough! No... he forgot to point his penis downward so he peed on the carpet instead of the potty. The carpet part is fine - whatever, it will clean, that's why they made Resolve - but he was so upset about peeing on the carpet that he couldn't finish on the potty.

Enter the third pair of underpants, because the second pair got caught in the crossfire. Several more times he sat on the potty and did nothing, but he told me he did. Then he picked up the little bowl and told me it spilled. Cue Crazy Mommy rushing to clean up the mess. There wasn't a mess. There were some forcefully spoken sentences about potties and germs and not wearing them on our heads. Then he actually did pee just a little, and three drops got on his underpants.

Enter the fourth pair of underpants. He ended up in Ella's room, sitting on her rug to play, and he relaxed enough to pee enough that I needed to wash the rug. And the underpants.

Enter his second Diego pull up, because I only have seven pairs of underpants and he had already created a load of laundry by himself in a matter of hours.

Standing at the table to eat supper, he peed again. He always pees at the table. I guess food is distraction enough that he forgets to hold it? Because the good Lord knows he won't stop long enough to empty his bladder any other time and he can hold it longer than a kid that age should be able. Since it was a pull up, I tried to make him wait until after supper to change him (because sometimes I just want to eat my food without getting up over and over again), but he couldn't handle it. This time, he chose a diaper. And he promptly emptied his bladder. Finally.

He hadn't said anything else about underpants until this morning, when he insisted on wearing them to Grandmother's house. He doesn't have school today, and he wouldn't be convinced otherwise, so I took him and his underpants and five more changes of clothes to Grandmother's house. When I told Dave about it, he said, "Your mom is going to kill you," to which I responded, "Yeah." Or, maybe some magic will happen today. We'll see.

I was kind of hoping he'd wait a couple more months before trying again because he just doesn't seem to be physically ready to use the potty yet. He doesn't want to stop long enough to sit long enough to potty. He won't empty his bladder when he does sit on the potty, then he has an accident. That freaks him out, so he holds it again, and we enter into a vicious cycle. And he can hold it a really long time. His teacher just sent a note home yesterday to tell me that he is always dry all day at school, but he won't use the potty. I know this. He stays dry overnight, at school, and most of the day when we are at home. I do think he's on the brink, but he hasn't had the big breakthrough yet. Maybe this means that once it clicks, it'll just be done?

I hope so, because he really wants to wear choo-choo underpants. I just need to try to control myself and let him do it, and then I'll spend $20 on carpet cleaner instead of diapers and that will be that.

P.S. Nothing desensitizes you to the use of the word "penis" like potty training a little boy. Penis, penis, penis, penis.