August 24, 2006
Still no word. Or rather, they discovered that the problem with the alternator was a blown fuse – much less expensive than getting a new alternator! Course I suspect that their discovery of the fuse came in part because Tom, who is, after all, a ‘failure analyst’, wanted to look at the part to determine the cause of the problem. The folks at Motorplex are well aware of Tom’s background and so they are generally very careful to check everything… However, we have not been able to get the car back in to get the other issues worked on as the loaner car that Motorplex owns is still out. It was supposed to have been returned several days back but has never reappeared. Hmmm… and then there is the recall – yes, Ford Co. has issued a recall on the Merc because of a failure in the cruise control – a failure which might cause the control to spontaneously ignite – even if the car is just sitting parked! Tom had made an appointment for me to take the car in this am at 10 BUT he had forgotten that the boys have swimming at 9:30 am. As this is likely to be the last session for Jason, at least for this year, I am not inclined to skip it. So we will have to, somehow, reschedule the inspection on the car.
Lord. I am tired. Boys have slept well the past two nights, thank heavens. Previous nights were not so good. But I am stressing – worrying about the car, worrying about Tom, worrying about all the commitments I have made – I am taking care of a friend’s animals while she and her family are off on a road trip. That mean that two times a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, I have to load the boys in the car and head over to her house. There I let the dog out to do his business and, while he does that, I go take care of the two cats. Yesterday morning, when I went into the house, I discovered that poor old Malcolm had had an accident – on the floor of Andrea’s bedroom and all down the hall. As I was starting to clean it up – and it was more a lake than a piddle – I heard Jason call ‘Can I come in, mommy?’ Thank heavens the child asked! ‘NO!!!’ I yelled, rather frantically. ‘DON’T COME IN!’ Malcolm, a pony sized dog, raised his shaggy eyebrows at me and hurried back outside. Hmmm…. That favor lasts until Sept 2 and then they will be back. I have also agreed to take care of Chris starting tomorrow through Wednesday. His mother has some ‘pre-work’ work to do. Sigh. I am impressed with people who can have and care for three + children. Just thinking about it exhausts me!
Of course, part of this stress is my nerves about Jason’s going off to kindergarten. He has announced that he will ride the bus to school (I will pick him up at noon). I am terribly nervous about that, I admit. I remember only too well the problems one can encounter on the bus. To my best knowledge, the only adult on the bus will be the driver – who will need to be concentrating on driving and will not be in a position to police the kids. In theory, at least, the littlest ones sit towards the front of the bus. We shall see. Moreover, Jason’s teacher is a new-hire which means that no one knows how good, or awful, she is. Jason goes in for ‘orientation’ and ‘assessment’ on Sept 5 and 7th. I have arranged for Donna to come and take Xander for me so that I can go and concentrate on Jason. He is quite casual about the whole thing, of course. Sigh… Mommy nerves strike again.
Tom took Mom off to the airport this am at 5 and Xander woke at 5:30. He will be wiped by the time swimming happens but… such is life. It was nice having Mom here though I cannot think that she had the best time. We were all quite sick – Tom was sick enough that he took the day off (the day she arrived) and slept in. He has to be really sick to do that – especially with all the work he has on his plate these days. He informed me recently that overtime is looking to become the norm – as Boeing gears up the 787 project they are pulling more and more people off other work and that means that those not tagged for the project are left to pick up the pieces. That means the next three years will be hectic and then?
Anyway, it was nice to see Mom and I know that we will all miss her. Xander especially, I suspect, as he had the pleasure of ‘waking’ Ama Pat in the mornings. Don’t ask me why but for some reason the child gets a real thrill out of waking people up. ‘I go knock Doorway.’ He announces. ‘I go wake up Ama.’ Or, when I have picked him up out of the crib and am heading out the door, he will say in a whisper ‘Mommy say ‘Shush Xander. No wake up BaBa.’’ Then, at the top of his lungs, he will yell ‘WAKE UP BABA!!!’ His speech is so weird these days – a mixture of clarity/precision and babyese. For example, we were walking up towards the library and he suddenly announced, very clearly, ‘Nemo Daddy say ‘NEMO – You get back here right this minute, young man!’’ An older man, walking back to his car, looked over with a grin and said ‘And I will bet he drove the car here too!’ I just sighed. On other occasions, he will say ‘I be, I be, I be…’ whatever the ‘I be’ is – perhaps ‘I be done’ or ‘I be want dat’. One never can tell with him.
And Ama Pat was willing to read to Xander – books that his parents had gone out on strike against. (He would willingly have certain books read and reread and reread on and on and on.) Yes, he will miss Ama Pat.
Jason will miss his grandmother too though his interactions with her were somewhat less. Jason is very physically active – up, down, and all about – and Mom is not so. Her hip has been really bothering her and that means she moves slowly and cannot get down on the ground and back up again easily. I
Just realized, after all this that I hadn’t told you the results of Xander’s blood work – everything came back normal – Thank god. The likelihood of Xander having Cystic Fibrosis was slim but that the spectre even lurked was sufficiently scary. So now we are back to not knowing why he is so vulnerable to sinus infections. One friend has the theory that it is environmental – that everyone is sicker these days and that that is because we have so polluted our air and water that it is nigh unavoidable. She may be right.
Oh dear. The painters are painting the front door and Jason and Papillion are providing assistance. I had better go intervene. Will write again in a bit.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
August 21 letter
August 21, 2006
Sigh. Okay, let me get this out and then I shall turn to more interesting stories. Today has been one of those Murphy days. Woke up this am with a list of stuff to do: call and cancel my doctor’s appointment (Tom has a late meeting and won’t be home in time to take care of the kids), call and make an appointment to get the car in (Loud sounds indicating possible problems with the wheel barring – just recently replaced and the idiot battery light came on last night), call the roofer to let him know that the house painters were arriving this am at 8am. Choose the colors of paint when the painters arrive. Go feed, water and generally care for my friend’s dog and cats (they are on vacation until day before Labor Day). Go Grocery shopping. Get library books returned. Pick up medications. So first thing this morning, I got up, put away dishes, set some clothes to wash, called and canceled the doctor’s appointment, called and arranged to drop the car off tomorrow am – when the mechanic would have a loaner that we could use, and got the boys dressed so that we could go take care of the animals. After loading the boys and my Mother into the car, we headed toward four corners – Jason was hungry so I figured I would feed him an 8 grain roll from Starbucks. Just as we got to the intersection, there was an explosive sound on the back right side of the car. Shite! Pulled into the gas station that was right there thinking that maybe the back tire had blown. It was worse. One of the long straps on Xander’s carseat had trailed out of the door and gotten wrapped around the wheel. The explosive sound was the strap coming loose. Thank the gods that it didn’t pull him and the seat out of the car! Oh, heavens. My heart just about stopped when I realized… oh man. I am still shaking with that. In one sense, though, it made everything which came afterwards anti-climactic. Anyway, got the strap IN the car and went on to Starbucks. While we were at Starbucks, I decided that I was REALLY uncomfortable with how low the battery indicator was and so I decided to stop at the mechanic’s on the way to taking care of the animals. We pulled in and I went and asked how long it would take to charge the battery. The gentleman there suggested that it would be better to take 10 minutes to check the alternator – and that it would be wise to do that because if the alternator was not working then a charge on the battery wouldn’t be of much use. So I brought the boys and Mom in and she read the newspaper while they played and I waited. Then the bad news. The car had died when they tried to start it. The alternator was definitely dead. I explained the urgency of the situation with the dog (He’d been inside all night) and they very kindly offered to have us driven all of us over there, wait while I took care of the animals then have us taken home. And that is what we did – although there was a hairy moment when the alarm at Andrea’s went off and I couldn’t remember the code to turn it off. I had visions of the police descending on the house en-mass and me with my mother and two boys… Not the usual house breakers. (grin). At any rate, Andrea was, as usual, prepared. She had left a type written sheet of instructions on the table and on that list was the code. Thank heavens! So I fed the dog and checked the cats while Mom read and the boys played in the back yard. Then the lady from Motorplex drove us home. Almost immediately after she left I realized that I had given my keys – all of them – to the mechanic! I called. They said they would send someone over with the keys. So while we waited (Mom read and the boys played in the back yard), I cleaned up the yard some – putting things out of the way to make things easier on the painters. Once the young lady from Motor plex arrived with the keys, I went into the house to begin making lunch. Just three minutes later, the power went out. WHAT! I went outside, initially to see if somehow the painters had inadvertently turned it off but on my way out the door I noticed the power truck across the road. I asked what was happening and the belligerent, beefy man in the red shirt snarled ‘It’s a planned outage. PSE sent you notices in the mail!’ I responded, ‘No. I look at my mail every day and I never received any such notice.’ A neighbor from down the street concurred and he snarled a bit more before I retreated into the house. Only moments later, my next door neighbor, Mary Ann, showed up. “What is going on?” she asked in distress “I was just starting my laundry – I only have two days to get ready for our trip – and the power went out.” I told her what I had been told and she noted that she had not been notified either. We agreed that she should go and try calling PSE – I could not because I have cordless phones and they don’t work when the power is out (My cell charge was almost dead anyway and I needed it for when Motorplex called.). After a bit I decided ‘What the hey’ and called. I was transferred to the ‘customer service representative’ – and got his answering machine! So I left a seriously incoherent message on his line and hung up. Then I called for pizza. Boys were thrilled, of course. While we were eating, Mary Ann showed up. She had succeeded where I had failed and had talked to a supervisor. The super had told her that there had been a planned outage – for four houses that were already without power – but that when they got into the system, they discovered a larger problem. ‘We didn’t have time to notify everyone.’ As it was 292 house were affected by the ‘planned/unplanned’ outage. When someone from PSE called me back and tried to give me the site super’s cell number I allowed as how I thought that it was probably the site super who had been being so rude to everyone and that someone ought to inform him that the people asking him what was going on honestly DID NOT KNOW and had not been advised of it. She said she would talk to him. Then I spoke with Tom and he said that he had told them that he was lodging a formal complaint as their action (not notifying everyone in advance) was illegal. Meanwhile the power, miraculously, came back on – it had been that they were telling us it wouldn’t be on until 3 pm at the earliest. Thank heavens. So now we are just waiting to get word on the car…
Sigh. Okay, let me get this out and then I shall turn to more interesting stories. Today has been one of those Murphy days. Woke up this am with a list of stuff to do: call and cancel my doctor’s appointment (Tom has a late meeting and won’t be home in time to take care of the kids), call and make an appointment to get the car in (Loud sounds indicating possible problems with the wheel barring – just recently replaced and the idiot battery light came on last night), call the roofer to let him know that the house painters were arriving this am at 8am. Choose the colors of paint when the painters arrive. Go feed, water and generally care for my friend’s dog and cats (they are on vacation until day before Labor Day). Go Grocery shopping. Get library books returned. Pick up medications. So first thing this morning, I got up, put away dishes, set some clothes to wash, called and canceled the doctor’s appointment, called and arranged to drop the car off tomorrow am – when the mechanic would have a loaner that we could use, and got the boys dressed so that we could go take care of the animals. After loading the boys and my Mother into the car, we headed toward four corners – Jason was hungry so I figured I would feed him an 8 grain roll from Starbucks. Just as we got to the intersection, there was an explosive sound on the back right side of the car. Shite! Pulled into the gas station that was right there thinking that maybe the back tire had blown. It was worse. One of the long straps on Xander’s carseat had trailed out of the door and gotten wrapped around the wheel. The explosive sound was the strap coming loose. Thank the gods that it didn’t pull him and the seat out of the car! Oh, heavens. My heart just about stopped when I realized… oh man. I am still shaking with that. In one sense, though, it made everything which came afterwards anti-climactic. Anyway, got the strap IN the car and went on to Starbucks. While we were at Starbucks, I decided that I was REALLY uncomfortable with how low the battery indicator was and so I decided to stop at the mechanic’s on the way to taking care of the animals. We pulled in and I went and asked how long it would take to charge the battery. The gentleman there suggested that it would be better to take 10 minutes to check the alternator – and that it would be wise to do that because if the alternator was not working then a charge on the battery wouldn’t be of much use. So I brought the boys and Mom in and she read the newspaper while they played and I waited. Then the bad news. The car had died when they tried to start it. The alternator was definitely dead. I explained the urgency of the situation with the dog (He’d been inside all night) and they very kindly offered to have us driven all of us over there, wait while I took care of the animals then have us taken home. And that is what we did – although there was a hairy moment when the alarm at Andrea’s went off and I couldn’t remember the code to turn it off. I had visions of the police descending on the house en-mass and me with my mother and two boys… Not the usual house breakers. (grin). At any rate, Andrea was, as usual, prepared. She had left a type written sheet of instructions on the table and on that list was the code. Thank heavens! So I fed the dog and checked the cats while Mom read and the boys played in the back yard. Then the lady from Motorplex drove us home. Almost immediately after she left I realized that I had given my keys – all of them – to the mechanic! I called. They said they would send someone over with the keys. So while we waited (Mom read and the boys played in the back yard), I cleaned up the yard some – putting things out of the way to make things easier on the painters. Once the young lady from Motor plex arrived with the keys, I went into the house to begin making lunch. Just three minutes later, the power went out. WHAT! I went outside, initially to see if somehow the painters had inadvertently turned it off but on my way out the door I noticed the power truck across the road. I asked what was happening and the belligerent, beefy man in the red shirt snarled ‘It’s a planned outage. PSE sent you notices in the mail!’ I responded, ‘No. I look at my mail every day and I never received any such notice.’ A neighbor from down the street concurred and he snarled a bit more before I retreated into the house. Only moments later, my next door neighbor, Mary Ann, showed up. “What is going on?” she asked in distress “I was just starting my laundry – I only have two days to get ready for our trip – and the power went out.” I told her what I had been told and she noted that she had not been notified either. We agreed that she should go and try calling PSE – I could not because I have cordless phones and they don’t work when the power is out (My cell charge was almost dead anyway and I needed it for when Motorplex called.). After a bit I decided ‘What the hey’ and called. I was transferred to the ‘customer service representative’ – and got his answering machine! So I left a seriously incoherent message on his line and hung up. Then I called for pizza. Boys were thrilled, of course. While we were eating, Mary Ann showed up. She had succeeded where I had failed and had talked to a supervisor. The super had told her that there had been a planned outage – for four houses that were already without power – but that when they got into the system, they discovered a larger problem. ‘We didn’t have time to notify everyone.’ As it was 292 house were affected by the ‘planned/unplanned’ outage. When someone from PSE called me back and tried to give me the site super’s cell number I allowed as how I thought that it was probably the site super who had been being so rude to everyone and that someone ought to inform him that the people asking him what was going on honestly DID NOT KNOW and had not been advised of it. She said she would talk to him. Then I spoke with Tom and he said that he had told them that he was lodging a formal complaint as their action (not notifying everyone in advance) was illegal. Meanwhile the power, miraculously, came back on – it had been that they were telling us it wouldn’t be on until 3 pm at the earliest. Thank heavens. So now we are just waiting to get word on the car…
More of the letters
August 14, 2006
Oh heavens, what a day! Zander began waking this morning at 1 am. He then really woke about 3:14 am. I finally put him down in his bed, at his request, at 4:30… just in time to go take a shower and grab a cup of coffee before Tom had to leave for work. Then, at 5:15, Zander began to call out again so in I went. Got him back down to sleep by 5:45 and came out. Jason woke at 6:30 and I ended up waking Zander at 7:45 am. He woke happily enough, smiling at me, and set to eating his ‘cappy crunch’ cereal with delight. At about 8 am, I loaded the boys in the car – though Zander complained a bit as he wasn’t quite ready to leave his cereal (he is a bit of a slow eater) – and we headed over to collect Teri and her son, Christopher. Seems she was dropping their car off at the cleaners and it was going to be there for three hours minimum. Rather than leave them to wander about the parking lot while the car was being cleaned, I suggested they come back here. All the boys were glad to see one another – not a surprise since Chris, at least, considers Jason and Zander to be his brothers. Then, about 8:30 am, Donna showed up to stay with Jason while I took Zander to Mary Bridge for the various tests that his pediatrician had ordered. Dr. Oriel is troubled by Zander’s recurrent sinus infections. He suggested, therefore, that it would be wise to rule out possible causes – not the least being Cystic Fibrosis. He hastened to assure me that he doesn’t think it a likely diagnosis but that he wanted to be absolutely sure.
At any rate, I left Jason with Teri, Chris and Donna and took Zander off in the car. We stopped through Starbucks on our way and collected an eight grain roll for Alex. He polished most of it off before we reached Tacoma. Now according to everyone, finding Mary Bridge should’ve been easy but somehow I managed to get lost. So I pulled off and, with Zander singing happily ‘We lost, we lost, we lOST!’ I called Tom. He gave us directions and we found a building marked ‘Tacoma General and Mary Bridge Childrens’ Hospital’ After trying several different parking garages, we finally found a place to park and were able to get out and go in… Only, well, turns out that Mary Bridge is in a separate building! Off on foot we went and found the lab where Zander’s sweat test and blood work were to be done. He was so well behaved. He sat next to me quietly while we waited and I read to him from the Nemo book. Then the lab tech called us in and attached electrodes to his arms to stimulate his sweat glands and to inject blue dye. After about 15 minutes, we were told to go out and run around to encourage Zander to produce the sweat needed for the test. He was quite happy to do that – we played tag and pretend soccer then went in and bought Zander a green (he insisted) lollipop. ( I had read somewhere that the sucking motion, whether on a binky or a breast, released endorphins in children and helped ease the discomfort of injections. It occurred to me that the same might be true of a lollipop…) They removed the sweat collection rounds then it was time for them to do the blood draw. He sat on my lap, sucking away on his lollipop. The tech placed the butterfly needle in his arm. Zander blinked then removed the lollipop from his mouth and said only ‘Hurry please’ before replacing it. The tech looked rather stunned. “What did he say?” I repeated his request and she assured him that she would. It was a rather large blood draw since there were quite a number of tests but he sat stoically through the process and when she was done, he again removed the lollipop, said ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ and out we walked. To get back to car as quickly as we could, I put Xander up on my shoulders. I neglected, however, to retrieve the lollipop from Xander. A serious mistake, it turned out. Seems that his hand was getting tired of holding the thing and, up there on my shoulders, the closest and best place to rest it was… my head. YUCK! It did provide several older men a good bit of amusement – we met them in the elevator on the way up the car and they seemed to find the sight of a woman with a green lollipop in her hair and a child on her shoulders to be enormously funny… In the car, he requested water and announced that he was hungry so I called Donna and took a lunch order – picked food up for everyone from McDonald’s. OF course, once we were home, Zander was more interested in playing with the other two boys and the only thing that he really ate was the fries… but still. We should get the results on Wednesday. Wish us all luck.
All of this comes on the heels of a rough day yesterday. Tom had gone off to get a massage that I had scheduled for him. He was coming home, was, in fact, stopped, waiting to turn left into our housing community when BAM!!!! Apparently a young man, driving a Corolla, was not paying attention. He slammed into the back of an F-150 pick up truck hard enough to dent the truck’s rear end. The truck was flung forward into the car in front of it and that car hit Tom’s Honda. We got word this morning that the Insurance company has been in touch with the mechanic and Tom can get the car in whenever convenient. I need to call him, in fact, and let him know.
Sigh. And that is our excitement to date – this afternoon, a high school girl is coming over to meet the boys. She may be a possible babysitter. Then tomorrow afternoon, we will go to collect my mother from the airport. That should be very interesting and exciting for the boys.
Back for a moment in the evening. We put the boys to bed early tonight – both were so obviously tired. I woke Zander up from both his morning sleep and his nap and he had a long and stressful day, what with the hospital trip. And Jason, poor baby. He didn’t sleep well last night. I am not sure if it was because his brother didn’t sleep well or if he is himself coming down with a cold or if all the various recent stresses are adding up. All I know is that he tossed and flipped and was very active all night long and that is usually a recipe for an exhausted day. He had dark shadows under his eyes. He was amazingly well behaved for being so tired, however – managed to hold it together until this evening when we went to Mongolian Grill for dinner… and even there, he was well behaved. Had either of his parents been less tired, we would probably have been willing to help his stock his own bowl but no – we were both wiped and neither was willing to spend the extra time and effort. As it was, I was ready to scream by the time we got through the line. Something to do with basically not sleeping after 1 am this morning and then feeling stressed out about… everything. When Tom called and told me that he’d been in an accident, first – I was shocked. Then I was relieved that he was in one piece. Then it hit me, and hit me and hit me – what if something had happened to him? How would I maintain this family? I certainly don’t have the background, skills or training, nor yet the work history, to pull down the salary that Tom currently commands – and as it is, though he gets paid a really decent wage, we are still struggling, still working to pay off all the debts we have accrued in the 9 years of our marriage. God, I was shaking. Tom thought I was over-reacting but I kept remembering what the lady from the Food Bank had said. Many of their ‘customers’ are people like us, people who had had a good solid job – or two – and suddenly hit a bump.
But I am not going to go on about that. I will figure out something, some way to budget to build up a base. That will be hard but…
On to happier thoughts, though. Jason continues to build amazing items out of legos – today he built a flashlight! What will that child think of next? He is so fascinated by the idea of creating ‘new’ items that I have started taking pictures of his projects and plan to build a family website where I can publish them for him. Mind you, I shall keep it a private site. There are just too many threats out there. He will get a kick out of having his pictures up there and this way other people will get to see what he is doing. Okay, I admit it. I am over the top proud of him. He is so bright, so talented and so funny. He is also exhausting but I suspect, if I were better rested and had some outlet, some sort of ‘time off’ for myself, it wouldn’t be such an issue. When I am not exhausted, when my batteries are charged, I have the creative energy to keep up with him… and I find it much easier to remember that he is, after all, only five. When I am bone weary, all I want is to sleep and anything that demands energy is too much for me. Truly I begin to understand Mom’s favorite saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ It is not just about providing the child with a range of knowledge and experiences, it is about maximizing the ‘restedness’ of the adults involved. We will see how everyone fares this coming weekend when there are five adults and two kids.
Oh heavens, what a day! Zander began waking this morning at 1 am. He then really woke about 3:14 am. I finally put him down in his bed, at his request, at 4:30… just in time to go take a shower and grab a cup of coffee before Tom had to leave for work. Then, at 5:15, Zander began to call out again so in I went. Got him back down to sleep by 5:45 and came out. Jason woke at 6:30 and I ended up waking Zander at 7:45 am. He woke happily enough, smiling at me, and set to eating his ‘cappy crunch’ cereal with delight. At about 8 am, I loaded the boys in the car – though Zander complained a bit as he wasn’t quite ready to leave his cereal (he is a bit of a slow eater) – and we headed over to collect Teri and her son, Christopher. Seems she was dropping their car off at the cleaners and it was going to be there for three hours minimum. Rather than leave them to wander about the parking lot while the car was being cleaned, I suggested they come back here. All the boys were glad to see one another – not a surprise since Chris, at least, considers Jason and Zander to be his brothers. Then, about 8:30 am, Donna showed up to stay with Jason while I took Zander to Mary Bridge for the various tests that his pediatrician had ordered. Dr. Oriel is troubled by Zander’s recurrent sinus infections. He suggested, therefore, that it would be wise to rule out possible causes – not the least being Cystic Fibrosis. He hastened to assure me that he doesn’t think it a likely diagnosis but that he wanted to be absolutely sure.
At any rate, I left Jason with Teri, Chris and Donna and took Zander off in the car. We stopped through Starbucks on our way and collected an eight grain roll for Alex. He polished most of it off before we reached Tacoma. Now according to everyone, finding Mary Bridge should’ve been easy but somehow I managed to get lost. So I pulled off and, with Zander singing happily ‘We lost, we lost, we lOST!’ I called Tom. He gave us directions and we found a building marked ‘Tacoma General and Mary Bridge Childrens’ Hospital’ After trying several different parking garages, we finally found a place to park and were able to get out and go in… Only, well, turns out that Mary Bridge is in a separate building! Off on foot we went and found the lab where Zander’s sweat test and blood work were to be done. He was so well behaved. He sat next to me quietly while we waited and I read to him from the Nemo book. Then the lab tech called us in and attached electrodes to his arms to stimulate his sweat glands and to inject blue dye. After about 15 minutes, we were told to go out and run around to encourage Zander to produce the sweat needed for the test. He was quite happy to do that – we played tag and pretend soccer then went in and bought Zander a green (he insisted) lollipop. ( I had read somewhere that the sucking motion, whether on a binky or a breast, released endorphins in children and helped ease the discomfort of injections. It occurred to me that the same might be true of a lollipop…) They removed the sweat collection rounds then it was time for them to do the blood draw. He sat on my lap, sucking away on his lollipop. The tech placed the butterfly needle in his arm. Zander blinked then removed the lollipop from his mouth and said only ‘Hurry please’ before replacing it. The tech looked rather stunned. “What did he say?” I repeated his request and she assured him that she would. It was a rather large blood draw since there were quite a number of tests but he sat stoically through the process and when she was done, he again removed the lollipop, said ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ and out we walked. To get back to car as quickly as we could, I put Xander up on my shoulders. I neglected, however, to retrieve the lollipop from Xander. A serious mistake, it turned out. Seems that his hand was getting tired of holding the thing and, up there on my shoulders, the closest and best place to rest it was… my head. YUCK! It did provide several older men a good bit of amusement – we met them in the elevator on the way up the car and they seemed to find the sight of a woman with a green lollipop in her hair and a child on her shoulders to be enormously funny… In the car, he requested water and announced that he was hungry so I called Donna and took a lunch order – picked food up for everyone from McDonald’s. OF course, once we were home, Zander was more interested in playing with the other two boys and the only thing that he really ate was the fries… but still. We should get the results on Wednesday. Wish us all luck.
All of this comes on the heels of a rough day yesterday. Tom had gone off to get a massage that I had scheduled for him. He was coming home, was, in fact, stopped, waiting to turn left into our housing community when BAM!!!! Apparently a young man, driving a Corolla, was not paying attention. He slammed into the back of an F-150 pick up truck hard enough to dent the truck’s rear end. The truck was flung forward into the car in front of it and that car hit Tom’s Honda. We got word this morning that the Insurance company has been in touch with the mechanic and Tom can get the car in whenever convenient. I need to call him, in fact, and let him know.
Sigh. And that is our excitement to date – this afternoon, a high school girl is coming over to meet the boys. She may be a possible babysitter. Then tomorrow afternoon, we will go to collect my mother from the airport. That should be very interesting and exciting for the boys.
Back for a moment in the evening. We put the boys to bed early tonight – both were so obviously tired. I woke Zander up from both his morning sleep and his nap and he had a long and stressful day, what with the hospital trip. And Jason, poor baby. He didn’t sleep well last night. I am not sure if it was because his brother didn’t sleep well or if he is himself coming down with a cold or if all the various recent stresses are adding up. All I know is that he tossed and flipped and was very active all night long and that is usually a recipe for an exhausted day. He had dark shadows under his eyes. He was amazingly well behaved for being so tired, however – managed to hold it together until this evening when we went to Mongolian Grill for dinner… and even there, he was well behaved. Had either of his parents been less tired, we would probably have been willing to help his stock his own bowl but no – we were both wiped and neither was willing to spend the extra time and effort. As it was, I was ready to scream by the time we got through the line. Something to do with basically not sleeping after 1 am this morning and then feeling stressed out about… everything. When Tom called and told me that he’d been in an accident, first – I was shocked. Then I was relieved that he was in one piece. Then it hit me, and hit me and hit me – what if something had happened to him? How would I maintain this family? I certainly don’t have the background, skills or training, nor yet the work history, to pull down the salary that Tom currently commands – and as it is, though he gets paid a really decent wage, we are still struggling, still working to pay off all the debts we have accrued in the 9 years of our marriage. God, I was shaking. Tom thought I was over-reacting but I kept remembering what the lady from the Food Bank had said. Many of their ‘customers’ are people like us, people who had had a good solid job – or two – and suddenly hit a bump.
But I am not going to go on about that. I will figure out something, some way to budget to build up a base. That will be hard but…
On to happier thoughts, though. Jason continues to build amazing items out of legos – today he built a flashlight! What will that child think of next? He is so fascinated by the idea of creating ‘new’ items that I have started taking pictures of his projects and plan to build a family website where I can publish them for him. Mind you, I shall keep it a private site. There are just too many threats out there. He will get a kick out of having his pictures up there and this way other people will get to see what he is doing. Okay, I admit it. I am over the top proud of him. He is so bright, so talented and so funny. He is also exhausting but I suspect, if I were better rested and had some outlet, some sort of ‘time off’ for myself, it wouldn’t be such an issue. When I am not exhausted, when my batteries are charged, I have the creative energy to keep up with him… and I find it much easier to remember that he is, after all, only five. When I am bone weary, all I want is to sleep and anything that demands energy is too much for me. Truly I begin to understand Mom’s favorite saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ It is not just about providing the child with a range of knowledge and experiences, it is about maximizing the ‘restedness’ of the adults involved. We will see how everyone fares this coming weekend when there are five adults and two kids.
The tales continue
Here is the next bit:
August 6, 2006
Hullo again
It is a curious thing but I cannot recall when last I wrote. Things here seem so up and down these days that keeping track of something so ‘mundane’ as writing letters is becoming progressively more difficult.
I do have some rather funny tales to tell – who wouldn’t, living with two little boys?
August 12, 2006
Zander is asleep – not that he wanted to be. He was quite happy shrieking and bouncing about… that, despite the fact that he woke up at 5 am this morning and had two brief wakings last night. Tom arrived home last night so I was not really surprised that Zander woke to check on his daddy:> And when, finally, I brought him into ‘Daddy’s oom’, he was so delighted to have day that he just HAD to talk to him and play with him and generally wake himself, and us, completely.
At any rate, at the moment, Zander is asleep. Tom took Jason off to the driving range and now they are on their way back. I had offered to take Jason to the driving range on Wednesday last when Donna came over during Zander’s nap but that was vetoed. The driving range is something that Jason does with Daddy. So Jason and I played mini-golf… It worked out. We had fun. On the way there, we stopped through Starbucks and got drinks – Jason had a tangerine frappicino and I had a mocha. Jason allowed as how the frappicino was quite good and he would be willing to allow me to get him another one some time.
He is really the funniest little fellow. He comes up with comments that just blow me away – and I have known him for five years! Amazingly, though, he can still astonish me. And I am not the only one. When we were at swimming the other day, Jason was ‘thinking through’ his front crawl stroke. He was thinking so hard about the placement of his hands that he forgot his feet! When he got out of the pool toward the end of the session, his teacher, Ms. Carrie, commented to him that he was thinking too hard about it. “You can do this. You have before. You will again.” He has a beautiful dive – Ms. Carrie uses him to demonstrate proper technique for the other kids. That in itself is amazing when you consider that when he first started swimming, he was terrified of the water. Three weeks of screaming before he settled down. Then he hated getting his head wet – suffering, according to an OT I know, from something called ‘gravitational insecurity’, the same thing that causes him to panic when he goes up too high in the grandstands. And yet now he dives, hands, then head then feet. It is beautiful to watch. And his back crawl improves daily. Indeed, he did such an excellent job the other day that the teacher just about bounced out of the pool with excitement. I am so impressed with him that I can hard describe it. Zander is a water baby but Jason… he has overcome enormous challenges to be where he is. But, being Jason, he has to think things through.
And that describes his approach to most everything. Last night, when I was putting him to bed, we were going through our ‘armor’ routine. Essentially it is a relaxation routine but it has the added advantage of providing him with protection against nightmares. At any rate, each night he selects the ‘armor’ he wishes to wear. Last night he decided on ‘Casey Jones’ armor.’ ‘Who, in heaven name, is Casey Jones?’ ‘He is a friend to the Mutant Ninja Turtles’ ‘Oh’ I said. ‘Why not one of the turtles?’ ‘I prefer Casey because he thinks first, before he makes a decision.’ Ah… that is Jason.
Poor baby, though. He had a bit of a hard time on Thursday. He’d had swimming, and done well. Then he was very well behaved at the Moms’ club meeting. In the afternoon we went to meet my friend and her three children. His 'best' friend was there. He had a new bicycle and he had insisted on bringing it. He was riding and riding and riding and Jason was feeling very left out. Then my friend told her daughter to stop riding her scooter and there were tears so I suggested that we go out into the baseball field and shoot rocket balloons. We did that for awhile, until we had entirely blown up all the balloons. Then the kids ran around playing tag and various other games. At some point in the playing, Jason's friend got knocked down and was deeply upset. Trying to soothe him, Jason suggested that the two of them go back up to the playground and take turns on his friend’s bike… His friend agreed but once he was on his bike, he didn’t want to share it. Jason kept following him and asking for his turn until finally Rowan turned on him, in frustration, and said ‘I don’t like you anymore Jason!’ Jason was devastated. My friend was horrified. She apologized and made Rowan do so as well. She explained that Rowan had been hearing that phrase a lot from his siblings of late and was, as a result, feeling rather touchy. I also pointed out to Jason that Rowan’s bike was ‘new’ and therefore not something that he was feeling much like sharing. That didn’t go over too well with my big boy. ‘I get new things and I don’t want to share them with Zander but I do anyway.’ He said tearfully. Sigh. Poor baby. We will see how things go today. We are going over to Colin’s birthday party. It is scheduled from 4:30-6:30. Hopefully Jason and Rowan will make peace.
As for Zander – ah me. That child is something else. He had a wonderful time at the park because Rowan's sister and her best friend played with him. He really likes ‘big girls’ and Rowan's sister is quite good and patient with him. He is fascinated with the differences between the sexes – checking to see who has a ‘peen’ and who does not. He was careful to point out to me (as if this were a consolation) that even though I don’t have a ‘peen’ I do have ‘nipples and a butt.’ Ah… Tom just laughs. It must be a male thing.
Zander is also lord of the Universe. He KNOWS what everyone is supposed to be doing at any given moment and he has no qualms about directing people if they seem confused.
August 6, 2006
Hullo again
It is a curious thing but I cannot recall when last I wrote. Things here seem so up and down these days that keeping track of something so ‘mundane’ as writing letters is becoming progressively more difficult.
I do have some rather funny tales to tell – who wouldn’t, living with two little boys?
August 12, 2006
Zander is asleep – not that he wanted to be. He was quite happy shrieking and bouncing about… that, despite the fact that he woke up at 5 am this morning and had two brief wakings last night. Tom arrived home last night so I was not really surprised that Zander woke to check on his daddy:> And when, finally, I brought him into ‘Daddy’s oom’, he was so delighted to have day that he just HAD to talk to him and play with him and generally wake himself, and us, completely.
At any rate, at the moment, Zander is asleep. Tom took Jason off to the driving range and now they are on their way back. I had offered to take Jason to the driving range on Wednesday last when Donna came over during Zander’s nap but that was vetoed. The driving range is something that Jason does with Daddy. So Jason and I played mini-golf… It worked out. We had fun. On the way there, we stopped through Starbucks and got drinks – Jason had a tangerine frappicino and I had a mocha. Jason allowed as how the frappicino was quite good and he would be willing to allow me to get him another one some time.
He is really the funniest little fellow. He comes up with comments that just blow me away – and I have known him for five years! Amazingly, though, he can still astonish me. And I am not the only one. When we were at swimming the other day, Jason was ‘thinking through’ his front crawl stroke. He was thinking so hard about the placement of his hands that he forgot his feet! When he got out of the pool toward the end of the session, his teacher, Ms. Carrie, commented to him that he was thinking too hard about it. “You can do this. You have before. You will again.” He has a beautiful dive – Ms. Carrie uses him to demonstrate proper technique for the other kids. That in itself is amazing when you consider that when he first started swimming, he was terrified of the water. Three weeks of screaming before he settled down. Then he hated getting his head wet – suffering, according to an OT I know, from something called ‘gravitational insecurity’, the same thing that causes him to panic when he goes up too high in the grandstands. And yet now he dives, hands, then head then feet. It is beautiful to watch. And his back crawl improves daily. Indeed, he did such an excellent job the other day that the teacher just about bounced out of the pool with excitement. I am so impressed with him that I can hard describe it. Zander is a water baby but Jason… he has overcome enormous challenges to be where he is. But, being Jason, he has to think things through.
And that describes his approach to most everything. Last night, when I was putting him to bed, we were going through our ‘armor’ routine. Essentially it is a relaxation routine but it has the added advantage of providing him with protection against nightmares. At any rate, each night he selects the ‘armor’ he wishes to wear. Last night he decided on ‘Casey Jones’ armor.’ ‘Who, in heaven name, is Casey Jones?’ ‘He is a friend to the Mutant Ninja Turtles’ ‘Oh’ I said. ‘Why not one of the turtles?’ ‘I prefer Casey because he thinks first, before he makes a decision.’ Ah… that is Jason.
Poor baby, though. He had a bit of a hard time on Thursday. He’d had swimming, and done well. Then he was very well behaved at the Moms’ club meeting. In the afternoon we went to meet my friend and her three children. His 'best' friend was there. He had a new bicycle and he had insisted on bringing it. He was riding and riding and riding and Jason was feeling very left out. Then my friend told her daughter to stop riding her scooter and there were tears so I suggested that we go out into the baseball field and shoot rocket balloons. We did that for awhile, until we had entirely blown up all the balloons. Then the kids ran around playing tag and various other games. At some point in the playing, Jason's friend got knocked down and was deeply upset. Trying to soothe him, Jason suggested that the two of them go back up to the playground and take turns on his friend’s bike… His friend agreed but once he was on his bike, he didn’t want to share it. Jason kept following him and asking for his turn until finally Rowan turned on him, in frustration, and said ‘I don’t like you anymore Jason!’ Jason was devastated. My friend was horrified. She apologized and made Rowan do so as well. She explained that Rowan had been hearing that phrase a lot from his siblings of late and was, as a result, feeling rather touchy. I also pointed out to Jason that Rowan’s bike was ‘new’ and therefore not something that he was feeling much like sharing. That didn’t go over too well with my big boy. ‘I get new things and I don’t want to share them with Zander but I do anyway.’ He said tearfully. Sigh. Poor baby. We will see how things go today. We are going over to Colin’s birthday party. It is scheduled from 4:30-6:30. Hopefully Jason and Rowan will make peace.
As for Zander – ah me. That child is something else. He had a wonderful time at the park because Rowan's sister and her best friend played with him. He really likes ‘big girls’ and Rowan's sister is quite good and patient with him. He is fascinated with the differences between the sexes – checking to see who has a ‘peen’ and who does not. He was careful to point out to me (as if this were a consolation) that even though I don’t have a ‘peen’ I do have ‘nipples and a butt.’ Ah… Tom just laughs. It must be a male thing.
Zander is also lord of the Universe. He KNOWS what everyone is supposed to be doing at any given moment and he has no qualms about directing people if they seem confused.
To Begin
I thought I would begin this blog with some clips from Snail mail letters that I wrote -- so that those who did not receive the original letters can be caught up on our adventures to date. The first letter is from this past summer when Tom was sent to Italy by his company. The boys and I decided to go visit my mother in Arizona and what follows is a brief summary of that period:
While Tom was off in Italy, battling the fact that the place he was visiting was a ‘cash economy’, I took the boys and we went to visit my Mum in Tucson. Ah, and wasn’t that the adventure! Two little ones and me, traveling by plane and bus. Of course, I made a serious mistake. I thought to save some money and bought tickets that involved changing planes in San Francisco then had us taking a bus from Phoenix to Tucson. The outbound flight was on United, an airline I had sworn never to use again. Big mistake. Big. The flight out of Seattle was delayed, though only by about 20 minutes. When we got to San Francisco, I loaded Alex into the makeshift stroller (His car-seat atop our carry-on on a roller) and taking Jason’s hand, we raced across the airport to the other gate. We needn’t have hurried. When we got to the other gate, it was to discover that the flight had been delayed. At first it was only ½ an hour but I am experienced with United so I called my mother. “We are delayed in San Francisco. They say it will be half an hour but this is United so that means it will be longer. Call the bus line, get them to give you a rain check, then find us a hotel for the night, please.” She did so, wonderful lady, and it turned out that I was right. The flight ended up being delayed by 2 ½ hours. We did arrive though and, with the kind assistance of a variety of folks – none of them airline staff, I might add! – we collected our suitcases and transported them to the tram that would take us to the hotel.
The hotel was a serious bust – and I wrote one of the nastiest notes I have ever done. It was the Residence Inn, we had a suite and all that would’ve been fine except (1) they claimed to have cribs but in fact had only pack and plays – and pack and plays, if you do not know, are NOT good substitutes for cribs – at least not if the child is older than 6 months and (2) they put the knives in the lowest draw of the kitchen. I found that out because Alexander, my not quite 2 year old, marched happily up to me, carrying a carving knife between forefinger and thumb… OHHHH! And of course, there were all sorts of entertainments for the boys: They entertained themselves by jumping from the couch to the coffee table (arg), by turning the television on and off and on and off and on and off, by bouncing on the bed, bouncing off the bed, and by making phone calls… By the time I finally got them settled for the night, my hairs were grey – in the otherworld, if not in this one. OF course, they slept. I did not. I had one of them on one shoulder, the other on the other shoulder and lay all night trying to keep them from falling off the amazingly narrow double bed.
The next morning we went down to breakfast. It was a zoo. For some reason, though no rational one that I could see, they had arranged the food on both sides of the room so that one had to cross back and forth between the tables and diners. So there I was, and oh, you would’ve laughed to see me!, racing about, from table to food and back again, getting the little ones breakfast. Their eyes were far bigger than their stomachs and they kept asking for something new. When I finally got a chance to sit down, I saw the clock and realized that we were out of time. I needed to get the boys and the luggage back out to the front of the hotel so that the tram could take us back to the airport where we were to pick up the bus. I think I got a sip of bad coffee, though truthfully, I have no memory of it.
At any rate, we did make the bus but that was not to be the end of our problems. The bus ride from Phoenix to Tucson is about 2 hours long. I had not thought to bring water, a serious oversight given the temperatures in Arizona in the summer. Normally, according to my mother, the bus driver carries a supply of water on the bus and the passengers are given access. This was not the case on this trip. The driver was a surly lout. About 1 ½ hours into the trip, both boys were saying they were thirsty and in need of a potty break. The driver pulled off into a truck stop then, having stepped out of the bus, turned to the passengers and said, in the shortest tones possible, “Stay here!” He then proceeded to talk on a cell phone for about 15 minutes before disappearing out of sight for another 10. A good twenty five minutes in which the boys could’ve gotten a drink and used the loo. I was pissed but was too busy trying to keep them calm to be able to do much about it. What a relief to finally arrive in Tucson! And when we arrived at the bus stop, there was my mother along with the car that her friend had offered to lend us – and she had water! Yea! You never know how precious something is until you are denied it.
The rest of the trip was relatively peaceful. The boys were missing their daddy so I ended up sleeping with them – which meant that I got little sleep for the week we were there. On the other hand, we did have lots of adventures: we went to the mountains and wandered down dry river beds, we went to the circus, to the zoo and rode trains. I took them to libraries and bookstores – of course, and fed them serious junk food (McDonalds!) And they spent time with my mother and my father, separately, of course. My mother was delighted – the boys would wake her each morning and would drag her off to go swimming in her pool each afternoon. My father took Jason ‘birding’ (My father is an avid birder – volunteers his time to help ‘count’ the various species populations in Arizona.) and lectured him on rocks (Dad almost went into geology, he was that passionate about the subject). Lots of excitement but oh, we were all glad to get home again and the boys were even happier when their father met us at the airport!
Didn’t get anything written that day. Poor Xander is sick again – another sinus infection. That means he coughs and wakes all night long – and is miserable during the day. That also means that I don’t sleep and I am a miserable wretch all during the day. The one that that is hardest on is Jason. There he is, five years old, filled with the exuberance of youth and his mom is slogging about, tired as all get up and telling him ‘don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t make your brother cry’ – not fair at all since, when he is feeling sick, pretty much anything can make Xander cry! And then Jason stops listening – why would he want to, after all? And I get frustrated and yell… The other day, after such a pattern, I sat down, near tears and asked ‘Why don’t you listen to me when I talk nicely? Why isn’t it until I yell that you hear me?’ My ever so quick five year old cocked his head and said ‘It is the wax.’ I was startled enough to stop feeling sorry for myself and asked ‘Wax?’ ‘Yes,’ he said ‘I have a lot of wax in my ears and it gets in the way of hearing the nice voice. Only the scratchy voice gets through.’ I looked at him, a bit stunned and said ‘Why can you hear the nice voice now?’ ‘Oh,’ he said with one of his beautiful smiles, ‘you aren’t telling me what to do right now!’ ARRHGGGGHHH! Sometimes I feel like a character in a comic strip except without the ‘funny’ part!
Oh, grin. You should’ve seen the scene the other day. Tom and I went off to do some errands – we left the boys (Alex asleep) with a young woman named Hannah. (She has left now, gone back to Salt Lake City with her boyfriend.). We weren’t gone that long but when we returned, there was Jason trying to teach Hannah how to play chess. Now really, the person Jason needs is John Butler. They would understand each other perfectly, I suspect. Anyway, here is poor Hannah, all of 18, puzzling over the chess board. My five year old apparently picked up on her supreme ignorance of the game and used it to his advantage. He was ‘modifying’ the game rules so as to improve his chances of winning. She looked so entirely bewildered when we walked in that I had to go back into the back room and laugh. Jason had her coming AND going. “Now the knight usually moves like this” he said, showing her the correct positioning of a knight “except when you have already moved a king and a rook. Then the knight can do this” and he swooped down and took one of her pieces. “I can do that because I have ‘castled’ my king and you haven’t.” He looked quite pleased with himself. Ah me… His grandmother Donna, Tom’s mom, informed me that he tries to do that with pretty much any game he plays with her as well. “He makes up some interesting rules.” She told me “and they are all designed to benefit him! I let him get away with it for awhile and then I put my foot down.” Well, to be fair, he comes by it honestly. My grandfather used to cheat at every game HE played… of course, he expected to get caught. I remember once when he had bullied me into a game of cards. He was cheating blatantly and I was ignoring it. Finally, in frustration my grandfather threw down his cards and roared “I QUIT! I will NOT play with someone who doesn’t even KNOW when she is being cheated!” Ha! I won! I hadn’t wanted to play, after all… Grin. Poor man. That, of course, was about as subtle a piece of manipulation as I have ever pulled. Am not very good at manipulation – despite what one friend thinks. She insists that I am like the Japanese women, letting people think that they are getting their own ways when, in fact, I am pulling the strings. Truth is, I don’t have the patience for such deviousness. And I am far too arrogant. Just call me ‘Dragon lady’!
While Tom was off in Italy, battling the fact that the place he was visiting was a ‘cash economy’, I took the boys and we went to visit my Mum in Tucson. Ah, and wasn’t that the adventure! Two little ones and me, traveling by plane and bus. Of course, I made a serious mistake. I thought to save some money and bought tickets that involved changing planes in San Francisco then had us taking a bus from Phoenix to Tucson. The outbound flight was on United, an airline I had sworn never to use again. Big mistake. Big. The flight out of Seattle was delayed, though only by about 20 minutes. When we got to San Francisco, I loaded Alex into the makeshift stroller (His car-seat atop our carry-on on a roller) and taking Jason’s hand, we raced across the airport to the other gate. We needn’t have hurried. When we got to the other gate, it was to discover that the flight had been delayed. At first it was only ½ an hour but I am experienced with United so I called my mother. “We are delayed in San Francisco. They say it will be half an hour but this is United so that means it will be longer. Call the bus line, get them to give you a rain check, then find us a hotel for the night, please.” She did so, wonderful lady, and it turned out that I was right. The flight ended up being delayed by 2 ½ hours. We did arrive though and, with the kind assistance of a variety of folks – none of them airline staff, I might add! – we collected our suitcases and transported them to the tram that would take us to the hotel.
The hotel was a serious bust – and I wrote one of the nastiest notes I have ever done. It was the Residence Inn, we had a suite and all that would’ve been fine except (1) they claimed to have cribs but in fact had only pack and plays – and pack and plays, if you do not know, are NOT good substitutes for cribs – at least not if the child is older than 6 months and (2) they put the knives in the lowest draw of the kitchen. I found that out because Alexander, my not quite 2 year old, marched happily up to me, carrying a carving knife between forefinger and thumb… OHHHH! And of course, there were all sorts of entertainments for the boys: They entertained themselves by jumping from the couch to the coffee table (arg), by turning the television on and off and on and off and on and off, by bouncing on the bed, bouncing off the bed, and by making phone calls… By the time I finally got them settled for the night, my hairs were grey – in the otherworld, if not in this one. OF course, they slept. I did not. I had one of them on one shoulder, the other on the other shoulder and lay all night trying to keep them from falling off the amazingly narrow double bed.
The next morning we went down to breakfast. It was a zoo. For some reason, though no rational one that I could see, they had arranged the food on both sides of the room so that one had to cross back and forth between the tables and diners. So there I was, and oh, you would’ve laughed to see me!, racing about, from table to food and back again, getting the little ones breakfast. Their eyes were far bigger than their stomachs and they kept asking for something new. When I finally got a chance to sit down, I saw the clock and realized that we were out of time. I needed to get the boys and the luggage back out to the front of the hotel so that the tram could take us back to the airport where we were to pick up the bus. I think I got a sip of bad coffee, though truthfully, I have no memory of it.
At any rate, we did make the bus but that was not to be the end of our problems. The bus ride from Phoenix to Tucson is about 2 hours long. I had not thought to bring water, a serious oversight given the temperatures in Arizona in the summer. Normally, according to my mother, the bus driver carries a supply of water on the bus and the passengers are given access. This was not the case on this trip. The driver was a surly lout. About 1 ½ hours into the trip, both boys were saying they were thirsty and in need of a potty break. The driver pulled off into a truck stop then, having stepped out of the bus, turned to the passengers and said, in the shortest tones possible, “Stay here!” He then proceeded to talk on a cell phone for about 15 minutes before disappearing out of sight for another 10. A good twenty five minutes in which the boys could’ve gotten a drink and used the loo. I was pissed but was too busy trying to keep them calm to be able to do much about it. What a relief to finally arrive in Tucson! And when we arrived at the bus stop, there was my mother along with the car that her friend had offered to lend us – and she had water! Yea! You never know how precious something is until you are denied it.
The rest of the trip was relatively peaceful. The boys were missing their daddy so I ended up sleeping with them – which meant that I got little sleep for the week we were there. On the other hand, we did have lots of adventures: we went to the mountains and wandered down dry river beds, we went to the circus, to the zoo and rode trains. I took them to libraries and bookstores – of course, and fed them serious junk food (McDonalds!) And they spent time with my mother and my father, separately, of course. My mother was delighted – the boys would wake her each morning and would drag her off to go swimming in her pool each afternoon. My father took Jason ‘birding’ (My father is an avid birder – volunteers his time to help ‘count’ the various species populations in Arizona.) and lectured him on rocks (Dad almost went into geology, he was that passionate about the subject). Lots of excitement but oh, we were all glad to get home again and the boys were even happier when their father met us at the airport!
Didn’t get anything written that day. Poor Xander is sick again – another sinus infection. That means he coughs and wakes all night long – and is miserable during the day. That also means that I don’t sleep and I am a miserable wretch all during the day. The one that that is hardest on is Jason. There he is, five years old, filled with the exuberance of youth and his mom is slogging about, tired as all get up and telling him ‘don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t make your brother cry’ – not fair at all since, when he is feeling sick, pretty much anything can make Xander cry! And then Jason stops listening – why would he want to, after all? And I get frustrated and yell… The other day, after such a pattern, I sat down, near tears and asked ‘Why don’t you listen to me when I talk nicely? Why isn’t it until I yell that you hear me?’ My ever so quick five year old cocked his head and said ‘It is the wax.’ I was startled enough to stop feeling sorry for myself and asked ‘Wax?’ ‘Yes,’ he said ‘I have a lot of wax in my ears and it gets in the way of hearing the nice voice. Only the scratchy voice gets through.’ I looked at him, a bit stunned and said ‘Why can you hear the nice voice now?’ ‘Oh,’ he said with one of his beautiful smiles, ‘you aren’t telling me what to do right now!’ ARRHGGGGHHH! Sometimes I feel like a character in a comic strip except without the ‘funny’ part!
Oh, grin. You should’ve seen the scene the other day. Tom and I went off to do some errands – we left the boys (Alex asleep) with a young woman named Hannah. (She has left now, gone back to Salt Lake City with her boyfriend.). We weren’t gone that long but when we returned, there was Jason trying to teach Hannah how to play chess. Now really, the person Jason needs is John Butler. They would understand each other perfectly, I suspect. Anyway, here is poor Hannah, all of 18, puzzling over the chess board. My five year old apparently picked up on her supreme ignorance of the game and used it to his advantage. He was ‘modifying’ the game rules so as to improve his chances of winning. She looked so entirely bewildered when we walked in that I had to go back into the back room and laugh. Jason had her coming AND going. “Now the knight usually moves like this” he said, showing her the correct positioning of a knight “except when you have already moved a king and a rook. Then the knight can do this” and he swooped down and took one of her pieces. “I can do that because I have ‘castled’ my king and you haven’t.” He looked quite pleased with himself. Ah me… His grandmother Donna, Tom’s mom, informed me that he tries to do that with pretty much any game he plays with her as well. “He makes up some interesting rules.” She told me “and they are all designed to benefit him! I let him get away with it for awhile and then I put my foot down.” Well, to be fair, he comes by it honestly. My grandfather used to cheat at every game HE played… of course, he expected to get caught. I remember once when he had bullied me into a game of cards. He was cheating blatantly and I was ignoring it. Finally, in frustration my grandfather threw down his cards and roared “I QUIT! I will NOT play with someone who doesn’t even KNOW when she is being cheated!” Ha! I won! I hadn’t wanted to play, after all… Grin. Poor man. That, of course, was about as subtle a piece of manipulation as I have ever pulled. Am not very good at manipulation – despite what one friend thinks. She insists that I am like the Japanese women, letting people think that they are getting their own ways when, in fact, I am pulling the strings. Truth is, I don’t have the patience for such deviousness. And I am far too arrogant. Just call me ‘Dragon lady’!
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