Abbie & Ian & Tory Update

Monday, July 31, 2006

Most Disgusting Post Ever

Disclaimer: The above title is not hyperbole. What follows is a poop-related anecdote. You’ve been warned.

After setting the kids down for their afternoon nap, I lay down on the couch for my nap. I do this everyday. Some days I drift right to sleep and wake up several minutes later wondering what time it is and who just drooled on the couch. Some days I lay peacefully for several minutes without falling asleep, but at least I get to rest horizontally for an unbroken stretch without worrying about what objects the children are shoving in their mouths. Some days I hear a child, probably Abbie, screaming just as I drift to sleep. There’s rarely a big problem when she screams; I usually find her wedged behind a piece of furniture, or maybe crumpled on the floor in frustration that she can’t reach the books that I put up for a reason. When she screams, I return her to bed, and return to my day muttering about how she made me miss my chance to drool on the couch for the day.

Yesterday was one of those scream days. I rolled off the couch and stumbled into her room, expecting to find her stuck behind her rocking chair. Instead she was yelling on the floor after having fallen off the changing table. She’s not supposed to be on the changing table, and I think she knows that based on the fact that she never climbs up there in my presence. Usually she sneaks up there to reach the upper shelves in her room that are filled with forbidden objects like books with actual paper pages. Yesterday she had a legitimate reason for wanting to be on her changing table: She had a poopy diaper, wanted it changed, and since no adults were present she was going to have to do it herself.

This desire to be changed when poopy developed in the past month. Previously she never cared if she was poopy no matter how bad her odor. If we weren’t diligent in checking her diaper, or if I had cold and couldn’t smell, we might change her diaper before her nap as normal, and find an extra surprise hidden inside. The boys are similar, though they’ll at least get a little crankier most of the time with a poopy diaper, especially Ian.

Now Abbie will actively find someone to change her diaper when she notices poop. This sounds like a great thing, that she’s on the road to being potty trained. She has to realize there’s a problem before she can want to prevent it. The problem is she doesn’t just sense the poop’s presence; she has to verify it with her fingers. When she finds me, I immediately know what she wants because I can smell her coming around the corner. She’ll probably also have a few smears on her hands and legs, and if I’m lucky they’ll stop there. Usually I have to change her pants. If I’m unlucky I have to change her shirt too.* If I’m really unlucky I need to bring out the carpet steam cleaner.

Abbie spent her time on the changing table cleaning herself as best she can. She couldn’t remove her diaper, but she could wipe off any body parts adorned with skid marks. I believe that she fell off the changing table trying to find more wipes after grabbing the 50 or so in the wipe warmer, plus the special antimicrobial pad at the bottom.

When I found her, she had made a mess of herself, the changing table, and anything in direct contact with the changing table. Fortunately Ellie was home, and I immediately conscripted her to clean our child while I sanitized everything else. It was a messy job, but at least I found some irony in using household wipes to clean the baby wipe warmer.

With everyone and everything in her room reasonably poop-free, we set her back in bed, closed the door behind us, and hoped she would drift to sleep without further incident. She did, but my opportunity for a nap was ruined. Too bad, because I would have much preferred to have drool all over my hands.

* Her record is needing three pairs of pants in one day, and two shirts.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Water Damage

Abbie is slowly working her way up the ladder in the value of the things she destroys. The first things she destroyed were probably newspapers or other stray pieces of paper foolishly left on the floor. This is the rung where the twins currently reside, as they remind me every morning when I rise from the floor to clean up their bottles after simultaneously feeding them and reading my newspaper. This is no big deal, unless someone ruins the day’s Garfield before I have a chance to read it.

Next Abbie stepped up to books, using her newfound creativity to discover new directions to turn the pages of a book. This is a little bigger deal, but it wasn’t much since most of her books came cheap and pre-torn from garage sales. Her destructiveness with her books is now a little bigger deal since I’m looking to read these books to her brothers. First I need to convince her, though, that she doesn’t have to hold and turn the pages of every book I read, especially when I have a brother in my lap.

Abbie has since moved on to electronics, making her victims bigger and more expensive. There’re the television remotes that she chewed on too many times. There’s the LeapFrog toy that makes dozens of supposedly educational but actually annoying noises that she slobbered all over. There’s the cell phone that the helpful store clerk described as suffering “water damage.”

Now Abbie has her most expensive victim yet: Our laptop computer. Continuing her Death by Liquid motif, Abbie dumped a can of soda pop on it. Note that she didn’t accidentally spill the can next to the laptop, but picked up the can, held it over the laptop, and poured its contents all over the open computer to see what happens.*

I stood about 15 feet from her when she did it, allowing me to immediately flip the computer over to let the let the liquid drain out the way it went in, and then quickly turn myself to the side so none of my flowing tears would cause further damage. Not that my actions did any good. After a 24 hour drying out/denial period we flipped it over, plugged it back in, and watched the computer do nothing more than taunt me with a click every time I hit the power button.

This horrible experience has two silver linings. First, our laptop was getting old and would need replaced sometime soon anyway. It was about 4-years-old, and had a hard drive so small that it could only store a couple hundred CD’s worth of music. I just wanted to limp through with it for a little while longer until some mostly hypothetical future time when we have more money, possibly because I finally successfully propagated that money tree. That’s why we bought our new laptop with a “24 months no interest” plan.

Second, the hard drive was in good condition despite the drenching. We need several off that drive, like important research papers, priceless photos, and about 100 CD’s worth of music. Fortunately we can pay a nominal fee when we buy our new laptop to have the old drive’s contents transferred to the new computer. This is a better option than paying a large sum for an intensive recovery, only to discover that the only salvageable files are a couple things from the Internet cache, and maybe my college treatise on the life of Mahler.

Our laptop is on order, so now we need only wait. It should arrive in a couple days loaded with all of our old important information. When I get it home, I’m going to let Abbie nowhere near it. I’m also going to start immediately disposing all open liquid containers in the house. Oh, and I’d better hide my car keys, because the car is about the only thing we own left for her to graduate to.

* Daddy yells “dear God, no!”
** That’s equivalent to approximately 210 people years.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Cleaning off the Camera

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Ian is showing why we need to be very afraid of his physical developmental prowess.

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I thought Ian was playing awful quietly in the living room.

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Abbie is going down a makeshift waterslide with her aunt. That’s a look of joy on her face, not terror.

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Abbie’s favorite carnival activity? The bouncy house.

Friday, July 28, 2006

At Least These Fish Don't Have Mercury

If you read yesterday’s post, you may have noticed that Abbie’s main course for a recent supper was Goldfish crackers. If you didn’t read it, scroll down until you notice it. Yesterday’s post was scintillating.

I believe this was the first time Abbie ever enjoyed Goldfish crackers as a meal. She enjoys Goldfish as a snack daily. Sometimes she even eats enough crackers during her snack to qualify as a meal. I’ve never just dumped a pile of Goldfish on her tray before and called it a meal, though. In the past I’ve always insisted that she take a few bites of her entrée before the Goldfish dump.

For a girl who used to eat anything on a spoon up to and including condiments, her approved entrée list is alarmingly small. She’ll eat various pasta dishes, assorted heavily salted meats, and of course anything with a breading. For variety I’ll combine food groups, so she’ll eat macaroni and cheese with hot dogs mixed in, or spaghetti with sauce and a chicken nugget on top for cheater chicken parmesan. Otherwise it’s the same thing night after night. Every time I feel like complaining, I remember that she eats lima beans and broccoli by the handful, and decide to cut her some slack.

Her preference for eating the same thing is likely genetic as I tend to make a giant batch of something for supper, say tacos or those crab burgers that I swear Ellie would like if she’d just try them, and spend the next week reheating identical meals every night. My lunchtime variety consists of eating a Golden Delicious instead of a Red Delicious with my egg salad sandwich. The only variety I get for breakfast is when my bran flakes are a different store brand.

Her entrée on the Goldfish night was ravioli. Abbie doesn’t like all pasta dishes; anything involving rotini is inexplicably verboten for example. Even though it can be a little funky, ravioli is on the approved list. In fact, she had ravioli the night before. I was giving her the left over portion from yesterday’s restaurant ravioli, reheated with love in the microwave. The only difference is it didn’t come on a plastic plate this time, or with a breadstick.

I plopped the ravioli on her plate, and she immediately plopped a piece on the ground. I sat with her, looked her in the eye, and ate a piece with a smile on my face to show her how good it was. She looked me back in the eye, and insisted that I take the rest if I enjoyed it so much. I tried to sneak a piece in her mouth like it was a game, the “Let’s Eat Our Ravioli” game, but she mostly shook her head side to side in case any errant pieces slipped past her flailing arms defense. Once I managed to deposit a piece in her mouth; it lingered for a second before Abbie confirmed that it was nasty, and let it slide unceremoniously off her tongue, down her bib, and back onto the tray.

That’s when I gave up. We didn’t have anything else leftover that she’d eat, and there’s no way I was going to be a short-order cook and make a box of macaroni and cheese for her just because she wouldn’t eat her meal. So she ate a huge pile of Goldfish crackers instead. I saved the ravioli from her tray, though. It went well with my penne leftover from the night before.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

The Abbie Diet

Breakfast:
A bowl of cereal comprising two parts Toasted Corn Cereal plus one part Fruit Rings, with a splash of skim milk. (Abbie ate most of the Fruit Rings; the dog ate most of the Toasted Corn Cereal.)
5-ounces of 2% milk, which Abbie took about two sips from before leaving on the ground.

Morning snack:
A bowl of blueberries.

Pre-lunch snack:
A bowl of peaches.

Lunch:
A bowl of lite yogurt.
A handful of Tasteeos.
A handful each of cooked carrots, lima beans, and peas.
The rest of her breakfast milk, plus a little more for good measure.

Afternoon snack:
One handful of Goldfish crackers.
One more handful of Goldfish crackers.
One last handful of Goldfish crackers.
One last handful of Goldfish crackers, and I mean it this time.

Supper:
Even more Goldfish crackers because I just gave up.
A bowl of fruit salad.
A handful of broccoli.
5-ounces of 2% milk.
A couple spoonfuls of ice cream after catching daddy eating his dessert.

Bedtime snack:
5-ounces of 2% milk.
Absolutely no Goldfish crackers.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Screaming Three

I’m to the point where I usually know why my kids are screaming. Abbie’s screams usually mean she wants a snack, and a good one too, not one of those bowls of Tasteeos I keep trying to slip her. Her screams may also mean she’s in pain (possibly because the dog just knocked her over), she’s climbed into a position she can’t climb out of (like into that half-inch gap between her toy box and the wall), or she’s mad (probably because I just yelled at her for trying to climb on the kitchen countertop grab a snack on her own).

The boys’ screams are simpler. When they scream, they’re usually hungry, sleepy, bored, or hurt. Or, when I’m really lucky, they could be any combination of those. Hunger screams come right before feedings, during breaks to unplug the bottle, and in that magical lull between the time that they finish solids and the time they’re repositioned from the high chair to the floor with a bottle in their mouths. The sleepy screams start a few minutes before naptime. The bored screams can happen at anytime, but they’re not as frantic as the other screams, unless I ignore them for a long time, which I’d never do, unless I’m trying to wash dishes. The pained screams can also happen at any time, and they happen a lot more frequently now that they’re coordinated enough to sit and stand, but not coordinated enough to lie back down on the floor with 100% accuracy.

That sums up their screaming reasons. Whenever one of my children screams, I can run down the appropriate list, quickly pinpoint a cause, and start remedying their angst. Except for yesterday.

It started about 6am when Abbie started screaming about two hours before her scheduled wake time. My first guess was she was mad because she woke up, was still tired, and couldn’t return to sleep. I entered her room to calm her before she woke the twins, but had no luck; she kept screaming. I carried her into the living room to calm her there, but she became more furious, screaming harder and clawing me.

At this point, I guessed her ear infection had returned, and I gave her a dose of ibuprofen for the pain. She calmed down the instant the dropper hit her lips, long before the medicine could take effect. We returned to her room, and I lay in bed with her until she mellowed to the point where I was confident she wouldn’t start running around the room the instant I left. By the time I rose around 7am, Tory was whimpering, and I was certain no one would sleep much longer.

Miraculously everyone slept until their normal wake time, plus the couple extra minutes I gave them as makeup sleep while I accomplished needed tasks around the house, specifically letting myself sleep in for a couple extra minutes.

The next unexplained screaming fit came immediately after their lunch. As soon as the bottle left their lips, they screamed. The normal response to this action would be to give the baby more milk, which I did. Tory wound up with a 12-ounce feeding this way a few days ago. The problem was both were approaching the 12-ounce mark, Ian was pushing the bottle away, and both were screaming uncontrollably. They weren’t hungry, they’d just woken up from a nap and couldn’t be tired, they were screaming too hard for boredom, and neither had just fallen so they couldn’t be in pain. The only way to calm them was to hold them, which I did for several minutes. The instant I tried setting them back down, they resumed screaming. At this point I did the only sensible thing: I set them both down in their cribs in the hopes that they’d go back to sleep and fetched lunch for Abbie and me. They didn’t fall asleep, but their screams became less furious, so it sort of worked.

I still don’t know why they were screaming. My best guess is that I’d just tried cleaning the carpet that I’d set them on, and they didn’t like the smell. The accumulated stench of months of Nutramigen spit-up was making me nauseous, so I doused the carpet with Febreeze. The resulting odor was a combination of slightly less intense Nutramigen spit-up and Febreeze, and perhaps the boys were offended being so close to the source.

They finally calmed down when I took everyone outside after lunch. Sunshine and fresh air have a funny way of quieting even the fussiest child. I let Abbie run around while the boys sat in the grass with me, and everyone was happy.

Then Abbie started screaming. Whether she was bored with the thousands of dollars in toys littering our yard, uncomfortable from the heat, or just didn’t like the way that fresh air smelled, she wanted to go back inside. At least I think that was the cause; her screaming at that time is unusual.

Back inside, Abbie quickly calmed down, and I worked hard to keep the boys entertained without the backyard’s charms. Naptime arrived after a while, and everyone went to sleep, me most of all. The rest of the day went smoother after everyone awoke, as we had no more unexplained screaming bouts. We just had the usual “I’m hungry,” “I’m tired,” “I want Goldfish and don’t even think about mixing in some Tasteeos” screams.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

"...Think about direction, wonder why you haven't..."

The twins love to stand. I think all babies love to stand. Just prop them up with your hands, and a fussy baby will calm down quickly as he realizes he now has a fantastic new perspective on the world. Shortly afterwards he’ll become fussy again as his legs tire, but standing can at least buy a few quiet moments.

Abbie loved to stand as a baby. I stood with her often, as that position along with the feeding position were the two postures least likely to result in her screaming. That may explain why Abbie was walking by her first birthday, which puts her slightly ahead of the curve from other children I’ve seen. I stand with the twins a lot, which may also explain why the boys are pulling themselves up to standing at six-months adjusted age.

Unlike Abbie, the boys are maulers when they stand. The love verticality so much they will dig their hands into whatever nearby parent parts are handy rather than risk being set down. Once attached, they hug tight, even using the suction power from their mouths to fasten onto a shoulder. Abbie was more willing to go with the flow, and simply voice her displeasure with a few screams whenever her handler was foolish enough to return her to horizontal.

The mauling aspect of the boys’ personality emerged within the past month. Before that, they lacked the coordination to intentionally latch onto anything. They would flail randomly while I held them up, and in the event that they found something to grab, I would easily detach myself and let them return to random flailing. Now they can spot and grab onto whatever is handy to steady themselves, whether that’s clothing, skin, or hair. The worst target was before my haircut when they would grab my untrimmed neck hair. If I can wrest my shirt free, a task that becomes harder as they develop a stronger grip, they can intentionally affix themselves right back onto my arm, or just my arm hair if that’s easier. Plus they’re now mobile enough to turn towards their target, so if I face them outward, they can squirm 180-degrees until they find my bright, white, still spit-up free shirt.

Now that they can pull themselves up, I don’t even need to hold them for them to return the favor. I can lie on the floor reading the newspaper and minding my business, when someone will scoot next to me, pull himself up to standing, and stick his mouth on my shoulder. Minutes later, I’ll have a soaked shirt shoulder, irritated arm hair, and feet positioned directly over the story I was trying to read. Sometimes I even get another baby doing the same thing around my legs. Trying to unwind myself from this position is a challenge, especially when I’m trying to do it quickly before Abbie can knock anything off the kitchen countertops that she just climbed onto. Sometimes I wish her standing skills were a little less advanced.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Learning to Climb

Abbie is a climber. She first taught us this fact around 18 months when she climbed out of her crib for the first time. She reinforces this fact in us every day by finding new heights to climb to. Her current favorite forbidden height is the kitchen countertop where she can access all manner of foodstuff as well as sippy cups and other dishes that remind her of foodstuff.

I’ve known about Abbie’s penchant for climbing for some months, and I’ve learned to accept it. I’ve learned to keep anything I don’t want her to have far above her reach where I’m absolutely certain she can’t break/drool on/swallow it. I’ve also learned to recognize the sounds of her climbing onto forbidden surfaces, such as the sound of our protective layer of clutter that coats all horizontal surfaces hitting the floor as she pulls herself up. I’m ready for her climbing adventures. What I’m not ready for is Ian’s climbing adventures.

About a week ago, Ian pulled himself up to standing for the first time. Today he pulled himself up to standing for the 41,027,501st time. I think this is an impressive achievement considering that he’s only 8-months-old, and was born eight weeks early. Plus he only started sitting unassisted a couple weeks ago, and I figured he’d want a little more time to master that technique, or at least build some core body strength before graduating to standing. At this rate he’ll be walking within a month, and helping his sister squeeze into tight countertop spaces before his first birthday.

Like most things physical exertion, Tory can pull himself up as well; he just prefers remaining in a horizontal position on the floor. Ian is the one I have to keep a close eye on, watching to see when he pulls himself up, making sure I’m in position to catch him should he fall or at least placing something soft near him to break his fall.

I remember the first time Abbie pulled herself up to standing. I don’t remember when it happened, so I’m just going to say she was 9-months-old. One of her favorite toys at the time was her IncrediBlock, a roughly 18-inch cube with five sides of baby fun and one side that holds the batteries. She could play with it in a sitting or standing position, though I only let her stand with it when I was sitting directly behind her to catch her if she fell. If I needed to run to another room for something, I would sit her in front of it and stand her up when I returned.

Once I sat Abbie in front of her IncrediBlock and ran to the kitchen to do something. I’d like to say my chore was something semi-noble like answering the phone, but I probably just wanted some sort of snack item. When I returned, I almost dropped my bowl of ice cream from the shock of seeing Abbie standing at her IncrediBlock. I checked with Ellie to make sure she didn’t move her, and swore I’d keep a closer eye on her in the future.

Now the idea of watching one child carefully for safety seems almost quaint. As long as Ian is happy standing and won’t injure himself to the point of needing a trip to the emergency room if he falls, I let him go and concentrate on keeping the other two children placated. Ian loves climbing, so there’s not much point in trying to keep him on the floor anyway. A couple days ago he tried climbing on Abbie’s potty. He already loves standing with the IncrediBlock:
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His favorite thing to climb on, though, is the one object he can always count on to be laid flat near him: Tory.
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Note that Ian hasn’t pulled himself up yet. That’s because it severely ticks off Tory when Ian uses him as a prop, and we can’t take a picture of the two of them while Tory screams, no matter how cute it is. Maybe I can at least count on having one child who will stay on the ground.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

"Johnny Unitas - there's a haircut you could set your watch to."

Abbie and I got haircuts yesterday. We didn’t just do the job with a pair of sewing scissors or an apparatus that sucks your hair into a razor like an evil DustBuster. We visited an actual business and paid trained people real money to cut our hair, in spite of the way we now look.

This trip was noteworthy for two reasons. First, it was Abbie’s first ever professional haircut. Before we cut her hair ourselves with the aforementioned sewing scissors whenever her bangs started affecting her vision. We usually only trim the bangs because I want to let her grow out her long blond hair. It’s about shoulder-length now, and flows majestically in the breeze when she runs at full toddler speed. Of course the longer the hair, the easier the tangles develop, and nothing short of cutting off her Goldfish supply makes her scream harder than brushing out tangles. It’s worth it to keep her hair long because she looks cuter that way. Plus maybe if she doesn’t realize that girls can have short hair, she won’t try to cut the hair on any future Barbies.

I’d been reluctant to take her anywhere for a haircut. I had visions of her throwing an unholy fit as the unfortunate stylist tried to trim her hair, creating an aggravating atmosphere for everyone in the building, including other stylists and customers. This could lead to Abbie being accidentally cut as the stylist desperately tries to trim hair off her thrashing head, or, worse yet, I’d have to leave a large tip at the end to ensure they’d let me back in the building on our next visit.

Yesterday she was with me when I went for my haircut, so I figured we’d give it a try, especially when the stylist who met us at the door volunteered to cut her hair in an act of bravery, or perhaps naivete. The stylist propped Abbie on a booster seat, and I knelt with her to keep her entertained for the entire cut while the stylist did her business. I kept her content by letting her hold a comb, holding her arms away from scissors, and constantly complimenting her on what a great job she was doing. Abbie looked like she wanted to scream several times, but she stayed mostly quiet, apparently opting to bottle it inside for future outbursts. Meanwhile the stylist took her bangs above the eyebrows after snipping a couple stray strands off the sides, possibly so I wouldn’t wonder why I’m paying for a cut to the entire head of hair when she only shortened the bangs.

Afterward, the stylist cut my hair, which brings us to the second noteworthy event: I got a haircut. I normally go a couple months between haircuts, cutting it short and letting it grow until the edges start to curl. This time I went several months between haircuts, possibly getting only my second haircut since the twins came home. I went so long between cuts, I discovered that my whole head of hair will eventually curl, not just the sides. I could an afro to put Napoleon Dynamite to shame if I wanted to.* I haven’t been consciously avoiding a haircut, it just fell far down my list of Ways to Spend Free Time Between Caring for Three Children Under the Age of Three.

I told the stylist I wanted it cut short, and she hacked its length by about half. I wanted it shorter, but I think she could believe that anybody besides a military recruit would want that much hair removed at one time. Obviously she hasn’t cut the hair of many stay-at-home fathers of twins. On our way out, I left a decent tip. I thought Abbie had been well behaved, but I can’t risk banishment from any salons. I still have two more kids that need first haircuts.

* I don’t.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Feeding Method

The twins are harder to feed solids to than Abbie was at that age. At least, I think that statement is true. Perhaps time has colored my earliest memories of spoon-feeding Abbie, shading them a happier hue of … happy. Maybe Abbie shared all of their bad habits at first. Maybe the way I lovingly shoveled food into her maw shaped her into the super eater I remember. Maybe the boys will also learn to be super eaters, provided my shoveling style works as efficiently while splitting my attention three ways.

Not that the boys are horrible eaters. I give thanks every day that I have easy going babies like Ian and Tory to care for, instead of those demanding and perpetually cranky babies like Abbie was. Feeding time, along with being-carried time, was one of the few times she was happy at that age, so I tired to protract it as much as possible with tiny spoonfuls of solids, slow-flow nipples, and frequent burp breaks. The boys are usually as happy on the floor as they are being fed, so I speed through their feedings with heaping spoonfuls of solids, fast-flow nipples since the day we brought them home, and one burping at the end of the feeding. I need to move quickly because Abbie has learned how to climb up to her Goldfish stash while I’m occupied.

Like I was saying before that sleep-deprivation induced tangent, the boys have a few bad feeding habits, starting with the screaming. If I take too long to serve their food, they boys turn angry. Abbie was the same way, as I assume most babies are, as well as most people in general as anyone who’s had to wait five minutes in the drive-thru for a shamrock shake can attest to. When Abbie started screaming from impatience, all I had to do was fill her mouth with food. She’d calm down immediately, turning her attention to the banana dancing across her palette with just a hint of oatmeal. The boys on the other hand stay angry. I can still quiet them down by filling their mouths with food, but their silence stems mostly from the fact that there’s too much food blocking their screaming equipment. When this happens, I have to finish with the solids as quickly as I can, hoping that one of the boys is still happy with his apples, and move on to what they really want: The bottle.

If the boys are calm when we start, they usually stay calm through the feeding. Sometimes they will turn upset before emptying their bowl, but this happens less often now that I’ve learned they don’t like infant cereal. That was a disappointing discovery since we stockpiled about a half-dozen boxes of infant cereal. Some of it was leftover from Abbie’s stash, but most of it came from friends and neighbors who no longer had use for it, possibly because their babies hated it too. I realized my boys hated it as they cried more often the more of it I dumped into their food in a desperate attempt to use a half-dozen boxes of infant cereal. As soon as I stopped using it, meals turned a lot happier. That’s a shame since infant cereal was a cornerstone of Abbie’s diet until she hit about 15 months and Ellie pointed out that maybe her diet should move beyond infant mush like rice cereal, and into adult mush like yogurt.

One bad habit I know Abbie shared with her brothers is blowing raspberries at mealtime, I just thought Abbie waited a while longer before doing it. Both boys can spit their food, but the primary offender is Ian. Tory enjoys his food too much to waste it on non-swallowing activities. Ian can be very bad about spitting his food, usually when I try to feed him a brightly colored food like carrots while I’m wearing a white shirt. My mother has accused me on multiple occasions of teaching him to blow raspberries, apparently because I seem like the kind of guy who enjoys cleaning splattered spinach off the wall.

Ian’s spittings have decreased since I started ignoring all raspberry-like sounds. I no longer bless him after sneezes because it seems he started making a sneezing sound just to get attention. Likewise, I no longer mimic him and blow raspberries back. I used to do that because you’re supposed to encourage oral sounds and imitation. Otherwise your child might grow up to be a late talker. Of course, I used this mimicry during my feeding methods with Abbie, and look where that got her speech skills.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Quick Firsts

Recent Firsts Achieved:

- Ian pulled himself unassisted for the first time.
- Ian chewed on his crib railing for the first time.
- Tory took a 12-ounce bottle-feeding for the first time. After eating a bowlful of solids.
- The boys are both turning book pages now.
- Abbie pedaled her tricycle for the first time.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Sit, Ian, Sit. Good Boy.

We’ve had a lot of children falling down in our house recently. That can only mean one thing: The twins are starting to sit up unassisted. I suppose it could also mean that Abbie has an inner ear infection, but for now those ears are a healthy shade of fluid-flowing pink. She has, however, found her own way to get repeatedly knocked onto the ground. The boys are my primary focus because Abbie can handle herself, or at least is a lot closer to being able to do so than the boys.

Ian rolled to a sitting position unassisted for the first time about a week ago. It’s only been in the last couple of days that he’s started sitting at every opportunity. Like a Cub pitcher developing an arm injury, once he gets the hang of it, he does it every opportunity. It seems like every time I turn around from taking something from Abbie’s hands or wiping something off the floor, Ian is sitting up. He’s usually just sitting with an expression saying “now what?” so apparently learning to do something while sitting takes time.

Tory is still learning about the joys of sitting. I’ve seen him roll into a sitting position a few times, but not many. He can sit unassisted for minutes at a time if I put him in that position, he just needs proper motivation to stay there like an interesting toy or a dog willing to stand in front of him for an extended period. Otherwise he’s happy on his tummy, scooting to whatever interests him.

It’s just as well that Tory doesn’t sit much because I have my hands full with Ian. Just because he can successfully sit unassisted doesn’t mean he can stay sitting or roll back to a horizontal position with 100% accuracy. His success rate is closer to the Cubs’ winning percentage, except he’s the one that cries when he falls. I think I counted a dozen instances yesterday when I had to rush to comfort him after he tipped over from a sitting position. Usually he falls backward onto his head, and nothing ticks him off more than smacking the back of his head on the ground, except for maybe a plugged nipple. A couple times he even fell forward, once onto his nose hard enough to draw a little blood.

I don’t think Abbie had to suffer through this much pain while learning to sit. That’s probably because I could afford to sit with her, propping her sides up with my legs so she can enjoy sitting toy with the utmost security. The twins generally don’t get the luxury of physical contact beyond the occasional instance when I remember to change their diapers, so they get ignored until their whining hits about three-quarter intensity. I have other important things to do, like comforting Abbie after she hits the ground.

Abbie insists on chasing our dog. I’ve warned her on several occasions to stop, but she listens to me with the attention span of a two-year-old and keeps chasing her anyway. Honestly, I usually don’t mind if she chases the dog; they both seem to enjoy the experience, it’s often the most exercise either gets all day, and it keeps her busy while I change that poopy diaper that I’m pretty sure I last checked sometime within the last hour.

A problem arises when Abbie corners the dog. That’s not hard to do in our style of home that can be best described as “postage stamp.” The dog, not realizing that Abbie won the chasing game or perhaps just desperate to avoid the otherwise-inevitable fur-pulling, will bound forward regardless of if Abbie is in the way. Often she’ll knock her flat on the ground on her way past. Abbie crumples into a wailing mess when she hits the ground, though I’m not sure if it’s because of the physical pain from the impact or the emotional pain of being knocked over by her friend the dog. Either way, I have to drop what I’m doing, not literally though if I’m caring for a baby, and rush to comfort her. I can’t stay very long because Ian is already looking a little tipsy.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Lullaby, and Goodnight. I Said Goodnight!

There are a few things I like to do around 10:30pm. I like to slide into bed around 10:30pm, ready for a full night’s to rejuvenate a body worn down by a day filled with three screaming children, one barking dog, and two puking cats. Realistically, I like to finish my pre-bedtime chores around that time, like throwing wet laundry in the dryer, writing a blog post, and cleaning up the cat puke.

Last night around 10:30pm, I was doing something I’d prefer not to do that late: Taking care of Abbie. She was fine, no ear infections or monsters hiding under her bed, possibly ready to afflict her ears with infections. She just didn’t want to sleep.

Ordinarily Abbie is an excellent sleeper. After we go through our elaborate bedtime routine, I shut her door and usually don’t open it again until morning. Not that she goes to sleep immediately. Usually I can hear her banging around her room for up to a half-hour after shutting the door before she falls asleep. Sometimes I have to intervene and return her to bed, like when she uses those magical toddler superpowers to levitate up to head-splitting heights and can’t climb back down. Otherwise we let her run around the room, discovering how the closets change when the lights are off, and trust that she’ll eventually wear out and fall into bed.

Last night, she wanted no part of sleep. I should have known we’d have problems when she slept late that morning and took an extra long afternoon nap. I shut her door around 9:30pm like always, and she started complaining almost immediately. When the screaming hit a level of fury suggesting she’d need therapy in her teenage years to overcome her abandonment issues as a toddler, we checked on her to ensure that she didn’t have a genuine need like getting dislodged from whatever precipice she found. Turns out she was just angrily sitting in bed. I gave her a kiss and told her I loved her to calm her down, and left the room.

Ellie and I repeated this process four times over the next 20 minutes, partially because neither of us was sure when or even if the other one checked on her recently. Each time Abbie would calm briefly before returning to a screeching level loud enough to wake the dead, or at least her brothers. Finally, when it was clear the twins couldn’t sleep without drastic measures, Ellie brought out the big gun: Resting with Abbie in her bed. She lay with her in the toddler bed, holding the child close to keep her in bed until her screaming turned into screaming. Ellie stayed with her for ten minutes, succeeding in tamping the screaming down to a general moan, but she hit frantic again almost as soon as Ellie left the room.

I tried to calm her again, but quickly saw that even singing could calm her down. So I let her out of her room. This is the absolute last step in getting her to sleep, letting her run around the house for a few more minutes to wear herself out and reset her approach to dreamland. She did her best to wear herself out by running around the house, chasing the dog, and bouncing on our bed. I gave her a few minutes of exercise before returning her to her room, but each time she screamed shortly after I left the room, and once even woke Tory.

Finally around 10:30pm, after watching her dance in and out of her room for a half-hour, I gave up, shut her in her room, and stayed inside to watch her reaction. She started to protest, so I sang her bedtime song. She started protesting again, but quickly did something that told me she was ready to sleep: She got out of bed to explore her closets. I slipped out of her room, and listened to her complain a little more before falling asleep 15 minutes later. Just in time too, because I hadn’t even started the day’s blog post yet.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Hot Town, Summer in the City. And the Country.

Traveling to see our families is a three-hour journey across the back roads of Iowa. At least it used to be a three-hour journey before we had three kids-worth of stuff to haul that leaves us cruising uphill like a 30-year-old semi hauling a double-trailer filled with the stuff you could theoretically find at the center of a black hole. You know, the stuff so dense that even light has to slow down when trying to drive uphill in its presence.

Because of this, our trip to see our families took closer to three-and-a-half hours. Otherwise, it was a smooth trip, especially considering that we arrived at our destination a half-hour past lunchtime. I was worried the kids would scream most of the journey since we were traveling in the morning, a time when Abbie usually runs around probably in pursuit of the dog, and the twins sleep for an hour if I’m lucky. Instead the twins napped, or were at least quiet, for most of the journey. Abbie stayed entertained CD’s and toys, which kept her happy for about 40 minutes. After that we turned on the mobile DVD player for her, and she spent the rest of the ride staring straight ahead, blinking only while we changed discs. What did parents do before car-mounted televisions?*

I expected similar results when we drove back home the next afternoon. In fact, I hoped it would be even quieter since we left during prime naptime for all three children. The ride was quiet for about 30 minutes as the twins quickly fell asleep and we quickly gave in to Abbie’s demands for the television. After that, the twins started screaming. I assumed they were unhappy they woke up before taking in their entire nap, so I ignored them, figuring they’d fall back asleep within minutes.

30 minutes later, they were still screaming, and mostly inconsolably. Abbie joined in too, possibly because she couldn’t hear the television, effectively guaranteeing that at least one child would be screaming at all times. Exasperated, I pulled into the parking lot for a McDonald’s, the restaurant so prolific that it manages to appear at least once an hour even across the back roads of Iowa. The twins quieted to a whimper as soon as I turned, so we circled the lot for a couple minutes to ensure they really needed a break, and weren’t about to drift to sleep. At the next anguished cry, we parked and went inside.

I figured the kids had overheated. You may have heard our country is in the grips of a nationwide heat wave. This is a major national news story, as defined by the fact that it’s hitting the Washington DC to Boston corridor, which makes the national news organizations take notice. Temperatures were near 100 that day with high humidity, which might not sound exceptional to people in other parts of the country, but remember that in Iowa the last of the snow finally melted about a week ago.

Our car has air conditioning, but I didn’t use it effectively. When we left, I set it to keep me comfortable in the driver’s seat, not to babies trapped in a rear-facing car seat with a sunshade blocking airflow comfortable. By the time I realized my mistake, the kids needed a break in a cool restaurant with chilled treats. I had a soda pop. Ellie had a shake. Abbie had parts of a soda pop and a shake along with a yogurt parfait I ordered for her. The twins had a bottle full of apple juice and water, chilled with a couple ice cubes.

Our stop lasted over a half-hour. When we returned to the car, I initiated a full-court press to keep the kids cool. I set the air-conditioner to “frostbite” from the start. We put pillowcases in the windows to block the sun. Most importantly, we stripped the kids down to their diapers.

After a few minutes back on the road, the twins fell asleep. Abbie was happy that she could again hear her DVD. I adjusted the cooling vents to keep blood flowing through my face. Everyone was happy for the rest of the trip home. At least everyone was happy until we were about 30 miles from home; the twins screamed the rest of the way. Our cooling-off stop brought us home well after suppertime.

* They probably listened to their kids scream. More so.

Monday, July 17, 2006

"And this is my basement." "Gee, it's not as nice as the other rooms."

We returned from our latest visit home last night. Our reason for this festive trip was the rare confluence of two consecutive days off for Ellie. Our main objective for the trip was to allow the great-grandparents a chance to watch the kids eat, play, and handle every beautiful and fragile object within reach. They have four great-grandparents, three on Ellie’s side and one on mine,* living in three households.

I love taking the kids to see their extended families, but I hate the hassles of traveling. I hate all the work we have to do packing and unpacking before, during, and after the journey. I hate risking a major disruption to everyone’s naptime, especially mine. I hate not knowing if that big brunch the extended family planned will have anything for Abbie to eat.

It turns out these are mostly unfounded fears. The brunch had plenty, or at least enough, for Abbie to eat. Everyone took a long enough nap to remain reasonably cheerful. The unpacking was almost finished a mere 24 hours after returning home. We even managed to split time between the families fairly and equally, though not all family members may agree with us.

Our biggest potential problem was the sleeping arrangement. Our overnight hosts have a cavernous house.** The best place for the kids to sleep was in the basement, while we slept in the guest room on the main floor in the opposite end of the house. We lacked the foresight to bring the monitor, so we had no chance to hear any child from our room should he or she request a late night holding. If anyone woke in the night, he’d probably have to cry himself back to sleep before we noticed it, which brings up the Zen-like question, “If no one is around to hear a child scream himself back to sleep, did he really need held?” I was hesitant to do this at first, but then I remembered we’d probably let the kids cry back to sleep if they woke at this point anyway, so what’s the difference?

We took a trial run at naptime. I set the boys in separate Pack ‘N Plays near the foot of the stairs, and sequestered Abbie in a back room where no one would really hear her scream. We pulled the mattress off the spare bed in her room and set it on the floor. After setting everyone down to sleep in their appropriate quarters, I slunk upstairs convinced no one would sleep. They didn’t witness their normal naptime ritual. It was too dark for the boys. Abbie would be too fascinated running around a strange room to realize that she was supposed to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

To my surprise, everyone fell asleep quickly. I kept listening at the top of the steps for someone’s panicked cries, but all I heard was the occasional faint sucking sound. I even tiptoed into Abbie’s room to check on her, convinced that she’d harmed herself on something we overlooked while toddler-proofing the room. Instead I found her splayed across the mattress, sleeping better than she ever does at home.

I set everyone down that night, hoping for a similar result. Once again I couldn’t hear anyone screaming, at least not until I listened from the top of the stairs. Abbie was wailing from her room. I found her running around her room lost, and decided it was too dark for her. I gave her a little light, said goodnight again, and shut the door, hoping for a quiet night.

I heard no more peeps until morning. That may or may not mean they slept the whole night through, but I never heard them complain. Not that I had a restful night’s sleep; I awoke several times to check on them, but heard silence every time.

When I woke for the morning, everyone was still asleep, so I gently opened Abbie’s door to allow her to find her way upstairs when she woke. Then I set about preparing breakfast, a task that involved filling bottles with the proper amount of water, and selecting the optimal jar of baby food. As I worked in the kitchen, I was pleased that everyone continued to sleep, at least until I listened from the top of the stairs. Abbie had shut her bedroom door, and was screaming at deaf ears because she couldn’t get back out.

Otherwise everything went well. I was glad that both our children and our elders enjoyed the visit. Now the journey home was a different matter. It’s also a story for tomorrow.

* This heritage may explain why I exercise like mad every day no matter how many children are refusing to nap.
** This explains why they were our overnight hosts; the house was big enough for our kids to throw a 3am screaming fit without waking anyone who had the power to kick us out.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Abbie & Ian & Tory Non-Update

I used to be good at finding Abbie’s old sippy cups. When I noticed one was missing, hopefully within a week of its last use, I could just check under the kitchen table or under someone’s bed, and probably uncover it there. As I get better at finding Abbie’s disposed sippy cups, though, she’s getting more creative at finding places to hide them. In the past week, I have found old sippy cups:

- In the kitchen cabinet with the pots and pans.
- In the diaper pail.
- Behind the cat litter boxes.
- In her toy box.
- Outside the house on the front steps.

This is a shortened post. We’re going out of town this weekend, and I still need to pack. There will be no posts this weekend, but that’s okay since most of you seem to steal from your employer by checking this during the workweek. I leave you with this photo of Ian enjoying our backyard, and Tory wondering what the heck that thing is I’m holding.

DSC01549

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Getting By

As mentioned yesterday, Abbie has an ear infection. It cleared quickly, and she’s doing better now. Yesterday morning was rough though as Abbie was coping with ear pain while functioning on about six hours of fitful sleep overnight. I wasn’t doing much better as I was coping with her ear pain on top of functioning on about four hours of sleep after listening to her fitful sleeping all night.

Somehow we had to survive the morning until the fluid could drain and naptime arrived. Despite their sister’s intermittent screams through the night, the boys slept well enough to be in a good mood. Abbie had no such luck. I quickly discovered that Abbie would be content as long as I kept her little plastic dish filled with Fruit Rings throughout the morning. This kept her occupied by (a) giving her something to eat, and (b) giving her something to feed to the dog. I think she achieved a 50/50 ratio of Rings for her, and Rings for the dog. I was a little worried about the effects that a mega-dose of neon-colored, sugar-coated rings of highly-preserved dangerously-sugary cereal would have on a sick girl,* but I figured that maybe her body would be helped by at least one of those 12 essential vitamins and minerals it was fortified with, possibly riboflavin.

Somehow I needed to replicate the mental state of a well-rested parent. Fortunately a “well-rested” parent is mostly a theoretical concept that’s difficult to find, like dark matter or a glimmer of hope for Cub fans, so I only needed to approximate my normal, adequately rested mental state. I know how I get when I’m tired. I lose my patience quickly, which isn’t fair to Abbie when she’s still young enough to need 1,025,340 reminders to get off the table and another 84,501 repetitions of being gently pulled off the table before it finally sinks in, and even then there’s a 1-in-2 chance that she’ll still spill water all over the floor trying to pull a cup off the table. I also have difficulty remembering things, like whether that scoop of formula I just dumped in the bottle was its first or second, which child was last changed when, and important blog-worthy anecdotes.

Fortunately I know a few coping tricks for surviving on four hours sleep. I learned a few things in college, and by “college” I mean “Abbie’s baby months when I didn’t know any better and would routinely stumble into bed eight hours before her regularly-scheduled wake time, and then spend half the night hoping she was about to drift back to sleep.

First I needed to get some food in me, get the body going, the brain firing, and that little hamster wheel spinning. After spending over an hour feeding all other humans in the house plus the cats, I sat down to a nice big bowl of cereal. Then I had a piece of toast. And some orange juice. Another piece of toast. Maybe a handful of chocolate chips. A drink of water to cleanse the pallet. Those strawberries were tasty…

Sufficiently bloated with carbs, I moved into the living room for a session of my special sleepy-time supervision. When Abbie was the boys’ age and I needed a little rest, I’d set her in her room where she’d be safe, lay down across the doorway so she’d have to climb over me to leave, and rest my eyes. I wouldn’t fall asleep, but I would rest for a few minutes in a minimally conscious state while she played, ready to spring into parenting action at the first whimper. It might not sound like much help, but I survived a morning with the flu like this.

I set the boys down in the living room, lay across the entryway, and rested my eyes. I’d been horizontal for about three seconds before Abbie started climbing on me. That was okay; I could still rest like that. Then she started bouncing on my stomach. After that I went into a minimally conscious mode sitting up. It wasn’t as restful, but it did allow me to keep better watch of the kids. This turned out to be extra rewarding when I witnessed Ian rolling into a sitting position unassisted for the first time. It also turned out to be necessary when I had to leap forward to save him from falling flat on his face from a sitting position.

With a lot of vigilance and patience on my part, we made it to naptime. Abbie was feeling a lot better by then, and took her average two-hour nap. I was hoping for closer to three hours, especially when she woke up extraordinarily grumpy. Fortunately I knew how to handle her: Fruit Rings.

* And the dog.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Sleep Infection

Abbie is usually an excellent sleeper. After going through our intricate bedtime routine, I shut the door, and she usually falls asleep for the night after running around her room for a solid half-hour. Sometimes I have to reenter her room a few minutes later if she needs help with something, like wriggling free after wedging herself between the wall and the rocking chair.

She occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night, but don’t we all? When I wake up, I stumble to the bathroom, scratch a few itches, and roll back into bed ready to fall asleep for a few more hours. Abbie doesn’t have the luxury of bathroom access, though, or even the ability to leave her room due to the likelihood that she’d get distracted on her way out of the room and wind up spending the wee hours of the morning playing with all the living room toys she ignores the rest of the day. Therefore when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she usually tosses and turns for a few minutes before falling back asleep. Sometimes she’ll emit a whine or two, but it’s nothing that requires me to leave bed and help her back to sleep, risking a total loss of covers upon my return.

As I rolled back into bed in the pre-dawn hours of this morning, I heard Abbie tossing and turning in bed. 15 minutes later, she was still flopping around like a fish on land, except now she was intermittently whining. I listened to this for several minutes more, and despite my cheerleading from the other room, her whining continued. Finally I entered her room before she woke her brothers.

I didn’t see any problems. I diagnosed her as being tired, wanting to fall back asleep, and being mad that she couldn’t. I set my head on her pillow hoping to calm her down, but the whining continued. I sung her special bedtime song, but that just seemed to make her angrier. I rocked with her in the chair, but that really ticked her off. I gave her a dose of Benadryl because, you know, she sounded a little stuffy to me.

As I walked to the kitchen to try fetching a drink of water or her, Ellie entered her room to try to calm her. She had no more luck than I did, and diagnosed her problem as a potential ear infection. This is a major difference in our parenting styles: She always thinks it’s an ear infection or some other physical abnormality. This is probably an extension of her job where she sees people with maladies all day long and almost expects a fidgety kid to have an ear infection. I never think it’s an ear infection or anything else wrong, just a grumpy kid. This is probably denial on my part since having a child with an ear infection means I have to deal with a child with an ear infection.

Ellie checked her ears, and found an ear infection. Nuts. And I even knocked on wood last night. We gave her acetaminophen for the pain, and brought her into our bed. We hoped to coax her back to sleep while the medicine took effect, or at least let her bounce around enough to wear herself out. If nothing else, we wanted her and her screeching away from the boys who were nice enough to fall back asleep after she woke them up.

After bouncing for a while she wore me out, so I took her out to the living room to partake in her naptime routine of watching the fish, singing, and marching into her bed. This time she fell back asleep with minimal fussing, and I returned to bed desperate to catch up on that 90 minutes or so of sleep I just missed.

A couple hours later, I awoke to hear whining again. This time it was Tory complaining about being awake two hours before the normal wake time. I slipped into their room, confirmed that Abbie was still asleep, and snuck a pacifier into his mouth before anyone else awoke.

I returned to bed, but almost immediately heard Abbie flopping in bed, followed by whining in bed. She was awake, and no naptime ritual was going to put her back to sleep this time. So I got about a 90-minute head start on my day.

She’s been grumpy most of the day, but not inconsolable. She took a decent but not great nap this afternoon, and so did I. Tonight she was acting better, so maybe it’s clearing already. I hope so because I need a good night’s sleep. I’ll bet I don’t even need a predawn bathroom break tonight.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

"I want you to raise your hand when you hear the tone." "You can't tell me what to do!"

I took Abbie in for a hearing test yesterday. This was the latest step in my never-ending quest to determine exactly why Abbie isn’t talking yet. Hearing loss would be a tidy way to explain and rectify everything. It explains why she doesn’t make sounds. It explains why she doesn’t seem too interested in attaching a label to everything. It explains why I can yell at her to quit pulling the dog’s fur, yet her fist remains tightly closed until she removes a tuft of white fur from our whimpering dog. A simple hearing aid would fix all those problems, except for maybe the dog one.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I was sure that her hearing was fine. She can follow directions, like pointing to various body parts, as long as the directions are simple and agreeable to her. She does try to mimic sounds, they just all sound like “ahh.” Most tellingly, she does on rare occasion obey when I yell at her to get off of there, but only if I sound really threatening like I’m about to cut off her supply of Goldfish if she doesn’t climb down.

We still need to eliminate hearing loss as a cause of her speech delay, so I made an appointment with our local AEA* office. AEA is connected to the public education system, which gives it all of the public school’s advantages, specifically vast human and physical resources plus it’s free to the client. It also has all of public school’s disadvantages, namely desperately under funded, which meant that I had to wait two months for an appointment.

When I finally took Abbie in for her special day, memories came back to me. I spent a few sessions in my local AEA office** for hearing tests growing up due to my ear difficulties. I, and my parents, suffered through my share of ear infections when I was young. I had tubes put in my ears several times in a mostly failed attempt to control the infections. They stopped putting them in when the doctors decided maybe they shouldn’t leave yet another scar on my ear drum. The AEA office watched me closely to make sure that my mild hearing loss stayed that way. Fortunately, I seem to be okay today, at least my hearing is okay, and none of our children have shown my ear problems.***

Several of the landmarks in the AEA office were familiar to me: The communal toys that have been chewed on by dozens of kids over the years; the sound proof, vacuum-sealed testing booth; the creepy electronic testing tones that sounded like a ’60’s progressive rock band was warming up nearby.

Of course Abbie was too young to be tested exactly like I remember, so things were a little different. They started by asking her to touch body parts from another room so she wouldn’t see any visual cues. After passing that test, they played tones from one side of the room or the other. When she looked in the right direction, they flickered a light in a shadow box to reveal a stuffed animal. I think this was meant to be a reward, but seeing a strobe light illuminating a stuffed animal accompanied by utter silence except for those Theremin test tones seemed like a big batch of nightmare fuel to me.

After verifying that her general hearing was good, they moved onto testing each ear individually with a series of increasingly invasive implements. First they used headphones, which stayed on her head for about two seconds, or just long enough to check what they needed. Then they stuck probes in the canal to check physical responsiveness, which made her scream quickly, but I could hold her hands down so they could get what they needed. Finally they used ear buds to see if she would react to sounds in individual ears, but those came out the instant I let go of her hands.

They wound up getting enough information to make a diagnosis: Her hearing is fine. She has no significant hearing loss, and won’t let them test for mild hearing loss yet, but I suspect that’s fine as well. Whatever the reason is for her not talking, it’s not due to hearing loss. That means we’ll have to keep probing until we find a reason, or until she starts talking. It also means I know she can hear me when I tell her it’s time to leave the park.

* AEA = Area Education Agency
** I went to a completely different office that the one Abbie went to.
*** I’m literally knocking on wood as I type this.

Yes and No

The question I keep hearing from people is “Is it getting any easier?” That, and “Abbie dressed herself today, didn’t she?” While the answer to the second question is a distinct “no,” the answer to the first question is a nuanced “sort of.”

A relative of mine who’s a wizened mother of a then three-year-old once explained that it gets physically easier as the child ages, but mentally harder. I like that answer. No longer do I have to carry Abbie everywhere I go, trying to figure out how to brush my teeth, empty the dishwasher, and prepare a bottle with one free hand because the other hand is busy holding a fussy infant. Now Abbie is happy on the ground, leaving me to ponder childcare conundrums like “Where did she run off to now?” “How can I trick her into eating hamburger tonight?” and “Why doesn’t a white top with green stripes match a white skirt with pink and blue stripes?”

Of course when people ask if “It’s getting easier,” “it” doesn’t just refer to Abbie. Questioners want to know if caring for twin boys with help from Abbie is getting easier. People assume that single-handedly caring for three children for hours at a time with a combined age of 39 months day after day is difficult, and that if I don’t get some relief soon I’m going to go crazy and start spouting demented rants against obviously vital things like cell phones.

Life is sort of getting easier. The boys have always been content on the floor, so I never had to figure out how to care for a toddler with a boy in one or (gasp) both arms, but they were still a lot of physical work a couple months ago. I used to have to sit with them for their entire wake time to keep them entertained, and by “entertained” I mean “awake.” My primary form of “entertainment” was poking them.

Now they stay awake until naptime on their own, which makes my life easier; I can direct my attention to other things like household chores or making Abbie let go of the dog’s fur. On the flip side, they now nap less, so I have to do things while they’re awake. I no longer have time to vacuum while they nap, I have to expose them to the whirring belts while they stay in wide-eyed fascination/horror at the noise.

I’m not playing mind games with them yet, so the increased mental challenge comes from caring for them while delaying my desires, like checking the newspaper, running to the bathroom, or killing our barking dog. The best example of this is at mealtime. I’ve successfully aligned everyone’s meals at the same time, including mine. I feed the boys, then Abbie, and finally myself. I don’t do much to feed Abbie anymore, just make sure she has food on her tray at the appropriate time, but the twins are time-intensive, especially now that they’re eating solids. I usually spend a half-hour feeding the boys, and another 15 minutes preparing Abbie’s meal while checking for dirty diapers before I get to eat. In the morning when I have to dress everybody in addition to feeding them breakfast, I’m lucky if I start eating an hour after waking the boys. Raisin bran tastes amazingly good about 9am. Steamed broccoli is also delicious after spending the last hour watching everyone else eat, in spite of what I may have seen minutes ago under someone’s, or someones’, diapers.

After everyone eats, they’re usually happy to play by themselves long enough for me to clean the kitchen, so I can say that life is getting easier in that way. Except that last night Ian managed to scoot into the kitchen all the way from the living room; that’s a harbinger that things are about to get a lot harder.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

The Cell Phone Rant

I hate cell phones. They turn ordinarily rational people into inconsiderate loudmouths no matter what they’re doing, be it shopping in a store, conversing with a suddenly ignored friend, family member, or colleague, or doing something completely trivial like driving. Mostly I hate them because they’re a giant money-pit, luring you in with a monthly rate higher than a cable bill, and then sucker punching you with extra charges for watching a video when you hit the wrong button, extra daytime minutes when your phone burns through all your minutes after accidentally making a call from your pocket, and download charges because it was finally time to replace that Bo Bice ringtone.

Naturally our family has a cell phone. Actually we have two, one for me and one for Ellie. My cell phone doesn’t really count since it’s one of those pay-as-you-go phones where I pay an exorbitant per-minute rate in exchange for no monthly bill and minutes that never ever expire as long as I buy minutes for it on a monthly basis. I bought it thinking I should have something for emergencies while I’m out of the house with all three kids and no adult accompaniment. Then the twins arrived and I stopped leaving the house. I haven’t even turned it on for months now, so I’m sure it’s expired by now,* hence why it doesn’t really count.

Ellie’s cell phone is an actual phone with an actual monthly bill. She uses it regularly since she actually leaves the house on occasion. Plus we both use it from home as our primary means of dialing long distance, but only on weekends and after 9pm on weekdays.

When Ellie used her phone yesterday, she discovered it had stopped working overnight. This is a regular occurrence in our household. I’d guess that Ellie averages a new cell phone every year because the previous one broke in some way. The last couple phones stopped charging. This one stopped making noise. Not that I’m picking on her; this is probably a common average. She takes reasonably good care of her phone. I’m sure that the phone manufactures realize that most people want to buy a new phone as often as they buy new shoes, so why bother making a sturdy cell phone? Unfortunately, I buy shoes expecting them to last more than a year, and I expect my durable electronics to outlive at least a couple pairs of shoes.

As soon as the mall opened, Ellie drove out to buy a functional phone. In accordance with her provider’s pricing policy, she spent Way Too Much Money on a replacement. Of course, you can’t just buy a new phone and put your credit card away; you have to buy accessories that work with your new phone, like a carrying case, car charger, and Muppet ringtone.**

Ordinarily, we have no idea why the old phone stops working, but this time the store employee could diagnose the cause. This was a refreshing change of pace from the average cell phone store employee who looks down upon anyone beyond college age who wants a cell phone, unless they’re buying it for their school-age children. The employee’s analysis was water damage killed the old phone. Specifically, drool damage did the deed, though I’m sure the employee assumed it had been dropped in the toilet a few times.

Abbie love playing with anything with buttons. “Playing with” for her involves “chewing on,” and by extension “drooling on.” She’s already ruined a couple television remotes with her mouth, and now apparently a cell phone too. We’ve given her the old phone to play with, and are keeping the new phone in places far too high for her to reach. Spending a few dollars on a new universal remote is one thing, spending Way Too Much Money on a new cell phone is another, especially after we just downloaded that Taylor Hicks ringtone.

* When I say, “it’s expired,” I’m referring to both the accumulated minutes and the phone itself since those things seem to have a shelf life of about 91 days before mysteriously ceasing to work.
** In all fairness, she found a free ringtone. I realize that she has to have a cell phone for her job, and I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking her. No matter how this looks.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Playtime for Abbie

One thing I need to do more often is expose Abbie to her peers. She meets the neighborhood children occasionally in the park, but otherwise spends all of her time with a daddy who’s big enough to push her around, and twin brothers who are too small to fight back.* It’s important that she play with other kids to improve that expressive speech that’s still stuck on “non-existent,” and to build some social skills that are also stuck on “non-existent.” Otherwise she could grow up to be weird, anti-social, and, worst of all, living with her parents.

When a nearby mother invited me to the neighborhood playgroup, I jumped at the chance to attend. At least I jumped at the chance once I weighed the pros and cons of single-handedly packing up all the children and leaving the house during the twins’ scheduled naptime. I decided that at least Abbie would have fun, and these days if one of our three children is having fun at any one time, then our collective happiness quotient is above average.

The playgroup date turned into a visit to the local public wading pool yesterday. Seeing the wading pool gave me a good lesson on how much things have changed since I was a kid. Back then, a “wading pool” referred to one of those cheap plastic tubs you fill with a garden hose in your yard. A fancier wading pool was the really shallow end of the public pool, or maybe a part of the local lake or river with sub-knee high water and a protective fence that was low enough to hop. This newfangled wading pool was a fancy contraption in a city park. It was large, maybe 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a sloping floor that varied the depth between 14 inches and “the bottoms of your feet might get wet.” It had a few water fountains in it, and was surrounded by playground equipment and picnic tables.

I knew Abbie liked the cheap wading pool we occasionally fill in our yard, but I’d never taken her to anything like a pool so I didn’t know how she’d react. I dressed her accordingly with street clothes on top of a bathing suit so I could just strip off the top layer in case she wanted to swim. The boys stayed in street clothes and normal diapers since I had hoped they would nap from our arrival until we left around lunchtime. The park was providing lunch to all the children, but I doubted they’d have pureed peas and Nutramigen for the boys.

We parked the car and walked to the pool, meeting the contact mother on the way. Before I could park the boys’ stroller under a suitably shady tree, Abbie bolted for the pool. I applied the stroller breaks, and ran after her, removing articles of clothing as she continued walking and trying not to be deterred by my fumbling.

With her in the water and the boys dozing under a tree, I sat on a bench and watched. I spent part of the time watching the stroller, first to see if they were still asleep, then to see if they were still happy staring into the stroller shade, and finally to see if I needed to put Ian back in the stroller and hold Tory for a while. Mostly I watched Abbie to make sure she stayed out of trouble. At first I wanted to ensure that she wouldn’t spontaneously lie face down in the water. Once I determined that her water survival instincts were at least on par with the average household pet, I kept watching her to make sure she was playing nice, and that no one was being mean to her. Plus I needed to make sure no other kids made off with that ball we brought form home.

Keeping an eye on Abbie turned out to be harder than I anticipated. In the time I took to check on the boys, locate our ball, and converse with another mom, Abbie could be in a different part of the pool. It didn’t help that everyone else kept moving, which often put another child and/or parent between Abbie and me. I usually found her quickly, but I had to rise off my bench a few times to find her. Once, as my contact mother pointed out, she really disappeared. We both walked around the perimeter trying to find her in the pool with no luck. I started panicking a little until she pointed out that a small child was climbing the slide across the park. I tromped over there to drag her back, swearing I’d keep a closer eye on her.

Otherwise, the visit was successful. Abbie had a lot of fun running around the water, ignoring her ball, and waiting for the ideal time to sneak off again. The boys at least napped for a little while, though I spent half of our visit holding someone. By lunchtime, they were ready to go, and so was I. I picked up a lunch for Abbie, but it wasn’t helpful in feeding anyone. Besides lacking formula or liquefied solids, there was little that Abbie would eat. It had a turkey sandwich, but Abbie is morally opposed to sandwiches, as well as any meat besides ham and hotdogs. She’ll eat carrot sticks like those in the lunch, but they have to be cooked. She’ll usually eat apples, but she decided the included apple was the throwing kind. She did enjoy the chocolate milk, though.

I packed up the rest of the lunch for myself, and we headed back home. The boys calmed down as soon as the car pulled out, and I drove fast so I could feed them before they changed their minds. I know Abbie enjoyed her time at the pool, though she did more running than conversing. We’ll have to work on those social skills at the next playgroup.

* For now.

Friday, July 07, 2006

"I don't want to have to wash any dishes, so from now on, drink straight from the faucet or milk carton."

There can be a large gap between what Abbie wants, and what Abbie gets. For example, Abbie wants to go outside; Abbie gets to watch me take the trash out through the screen door. Abbie wants more Goldfish in her dish, or better yet, someone to hold the bag over her mouth and gently shake them directly into her gullet, saving her time and effort; Abbie gets told “no.” Abbie wants the boys’ pacifiers; Abbie gets them as soon as I turn my back.

I’m locked in a power struggle with Abbie sometimes. She’s usually a sweet little girl, content to play nicely as long as I’m devoting full attention to her. As soon as I do something frivolous, like changing a boy’s diaper, she sets off to find new limits to push. One of her current favorite limits is playing with the contents of our dish drying rack.

Despite owning a dishwasher, I still hand wash dishes twice a day. A lot of children’s dishes don’t really fit in the dishwasher, specifically bottle parts. Other children’s dishes aren’t dishwasher safe, possibly because they’re made by the same people who make children’s clothes with cleaning labels that say things like “hand wash only,” “lay flat to dry,” and “wash with like colors” even though the garment contains bright hued versions of every known primary and secondary colors plus a few other shades previously thought to be purely theoretical. I use the rack to hold these dishes, plus anything that comes out of the dishwasher wet. Our dishwasher does a poor job drying things, especially those sippy cups it blasts into an open-end-facing-up position.

Most of the dishes in the rack are Abbie’s dishes, and she knows it. She loves playing with her dishes, and by “playing with” I mean “chewing on,” or at least “slobbering all over.” After playing with them, they inevitably end up on the floor, in the dirty sink, or in another location that defeats the purpose of washing them.

Ordinarily when I want to put something off-limits, I move it to an inaccessible location, but that’s not an option here. By definition, the drying rack has to stay adjacent to the sink so the excess water can drip into the sink instead of ruining the important papers that we foolishly pile next to it, so I can’t move it to higher ground. I can push it away from the edge and closer to the wall so she can’t reach it from the floor, but she’s frighteningly adept at reaching it by climbing into the high chairs and booster seat we keep in the kitchen. It is physically impossible to simultaneously position all three climbable chairs in our tiny kitchen in a location beyond an Abbie arm reach away from the rack. Even if we somehow manage to find that perfect arrangement where Abbie can’t easily reach into the rack from a chair, she knows how to slide the chair next to the counter.

With prevention mostly ruled out, I’m keeping an eye on her to keep the dishes clean. When she leaves my sight, I listen to her to make sure she’s only doing approved activities, like reading or chasing the dog. When I’m changing a diaper, I change it fast so I can get back into the kitchen before too many sippy cup valves go through her mouth. When I take the trash out, I make sure she watches me longingly through the screen door during my entire walk to the dumpster.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

"What else do you love, Lisa?" "Fiscal solvency." "Oh. Yeah, me too."

Ellie and I are adults know. If we need proof of our status, we can look at our college diplomas, our dog, our car payments, our three little tax deductions, and the fact that we now make enough money to be concerned with tax deductions.

As adults with three children and several pets depending on us for support, it’s our responsibility to establish financial security for our family. About two months ago, we met with a peer-recommended financial advisor to examine our fiscal situation and start our first retirement savings account so we can finally start complaining about how much money we need to set aside for retirement since Social Security will go bankrupt long before we retire.

I like to think we’re in good shape financially. We pay our credit cards off every month. We have a little cushion in savings. Our student loan debt has a monthly payment we can afford, probably for at least the next 300 months. We even have college savings accounts for all three kids, and I’m proud to say that Abbie’s is already into triple-digits. The boys’ would be in triple digits already if the rate of return in their accounts were closer to 300% instead of the –4% we’ve been getting.

The advisor looked at our finances and life situation, pored over various retirement accounts, and sold us on the best option for us right now: More life insurance. Once our check for the premium cleared, he agreed to open that retirement account we wanted. We invested a significant sum for our modest means, enough money to keep all three kids properly fed and clothed for upwards of two-and-a-half weeks.

In the ensuing 30 days, our retirement savings lost 10% of its value, the life insurance premium came back 30% higher than expected, and our advisor jumped to a different investment firm never to contact us again. That last one particularly peeved me since he ended our initial meeting with a line about building a lifelong relationship with us. And I was so proud of myself for calling “shenanigans” on his story at the time by pointing out that he was 25 years older than us, and would likely retire before our kids could drop out of college to blow their college savings backpacking across Europe, or possibly Australia.

Yesterday, we met with our new financial advisor. He had some work to do to smooth over the damage caused by their previous representative, though to be fair they weren’t too happy with the way the previous guy left either, taking clients, trade secrets, and some company-supplied monogrammed pens with him. Just to show our level of disdain, we walked into their fancy offices with all three children in two, and us dressed in our work uniforms, Ellie in hospital scrubs, and me in a spit-covered t-shirt and jean shorts.

I’m usually the one who takes care of the finances in our family, but I’m also the one who usually takes care of the children. Therefore, I made sure our dependents were content and relatively quiet while Ellie did most of the listening. This was okay since the meeting was less of an intense financial overview, and more of a “get acquainted” and “give us one good reason why we should give you one more cent instead of burying our savings in old formula cans in the backyard.”

I caught enough of the conversation to know that we weren’t being suckered into buying more life insurance. The kids were mostly well behaved. We set up the meeting during the twins’ nap time, and they obliged by napping during the entire meeting’s initial five minutes. At least they were satisfied sitting in their stroller and quietly staring at the shade for the rest of the meeting. Abbie was more of a handful, running around the office, grabbing things within her reach like those golf balls on the floor,* and finding shiny expensive objects to leave her fingerprints all over. I mostly kept her placated with a few silent toys, Fruit Rings, Goldfish, more Fruit Rings, and a little water. She threw one tantrum, for which I had to take her outside. She calmed right down as soon as she saw our car, and fortunately stayed calm once she realized we weren’t headed back home yet so I could go back inside.

The advisor did a good job of reassuring us. He pointed out a couple of mistakes from the initial visit like some incomplete forms and a stated goal of “aggressive income” when obviously we want “aggressive growth.” He was friendly. He never winced when Abbie screamed. Best of all, he’s only about 15 years older than us, giving him a chance of still practicing when the kids need money wired to them in a hostel in Dresden.

* He’s a financial advisor. Of course he plays golf.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Neighborhood Independence Day

Yesterday was Independence Day. It’s the day when we celebrate our nation’s independence by sneaking across state lines to skirt our home state’s fireworks laws.* It’s a day when people with normal jobs get to sleep in, while stay at home parents get to wake up a half-hour early because their toddler rose with the sun, started banging on her bedroom door to be let out, screamed when I didn’t immediately come running, and then woke her brothers to enlist their help in rousing me from bed.

It’s also a day for cookouts. This was a perfect excuse for our neighborhood to get together as several families recently moved in. So we held a neighborhood-wide potluck on Independence Day for everyone to meet the neighbors and learn their kids’ names so we’d know whom to blame when we catch someone picking our flowers.

The previous evening saw a competing neighborhood-wide pizza party. You see, our neighborhood is experiencing a bit of a war between the Mormons and the Drinkers. Our neighborhood houses five Mormon families, giving us the highest Mormon concentration in the state. The Mormons are very nice people, but they live by some strict rules, one of which is “no alcohol.” The Drinkers are also very nice people who also live by some strict rules, one of which is “all social gatherings must include alcohol.” Therefore we wind up with competing get-togethers where the Mormons make things as family friendly as possible; elsewhere the Drinkers set up a giant keg while parents chase their kids to ensure their cup contains a legal beverage.

The Drinkers threw the pizza party; the Mormons threw the potluck. As a non-Mormon family that also has nothing against alcohol except for the taste,** we could attend both events as they were on different nights. The pizza party was mostly a dud for us since the food arrived about an hour later than we expected and far too late for Abbie to wait, Ellie had to leave early for work, and the whole thing was broken up by rain that could best be described as “horizontal.”

Determined to whoop it up at least once over the holiday, we prepared for the potluck. I whipped up a sufficiently Iowan salad containing pineapple, fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, pudding, a tub of whipped topping, and half a bag of marshmallows. Ellie made an angel food cake to satisfy her jonesing for angel food cake if for no other reason. We then fed the twins since I doubted anyone’s pot would include Nutramigen, packed up the kids and an assortment of picnic supplies, and headed to the potluck.

The host set up an assortment of wading pools for the kids. We let Abbie run free to splash in the water. She played in the pools briefly, but left to terrorize children twice her age by trying to steal their inflatable pool toys. All hope of her returning to the water was lost when she discovered the tables of food left tortilla chips and watermelon within her reach.

When it was time to eat, I piled a plate full of assorted glop, confident that Abbie would eat at least some of it while I could finish the rest. Ellie fed her a hot do while I moved through the line, filling her with beef, salt, and a few nitrates. By the time I returned, all she wanted was to pluck a few berries off my plate before bounding off to chase a ball.

The twins started in the stroller while we ate, but they started complaining before I could finish my second hot dog. We then took them out and set them down to lie and scoot and across the grass. They were happy down there for a while, especially since they could teeth on the nearby stroller wheels, but eventually they started crying around my second trip to the dessert table. We held them for the rest of the gathering with ample help from the legions of neighbors who love holding babies.

After eating, we took time to socialize and meet the new neighbors. Before long, we had to return home for several reasons: The twins were getting tired, the weather was getting too cold for Abbie to play around the water, and it was bath night. It was just as well that it was bath night since Abbie had watermelon juice all over in spite of her continued proximity to wading pools.

* Missouri gets Iowa’s fireworks shoppers. Iowa gets Missouri’s casino gamblers. It’s a fair trade.
** Typical college-era conversation:
Drinker: “Try this.”
Me: “Does it have alcohol.”
D: “Yes.”
M: “No thanks. I don’t like the taste of alcohol.”
D: “You can’t even taste the alcohol. Just take a sip.”
(I begrudgingly try it.)
M: “I can taste the alcohol.”
D: “Yeah, isn’t it good?”

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

"Menachem Begin wore a pair just like them!"

About six weeks ago, the boys’ pediatrician thought he noticed a slight cross-eye in Ian. He referred us to a children’s eye specialist to closely examine Ian because of the perceived defect, and to closely examine Tory because he didn’t want him feeling left out. I called as soon as I returned home, and booked their first open appointment, which was only four weeks into the future.

The office called me two weeks later. The doctor has another commitment on that morning. I need to reschedule. I made another appointment for four more weeks into the future, or for six weeks after I originally called.

Yesterday was that appointment. Not that I could just walk right into their offices. About a week ago they sent me twin sets of paperwork to fill out for my twin boys. One page demanded a detailed medical history for each boy.* Another page asked for contact information for each boy, plus name, address, phone number, and social security number for the birth mother, birth father, current guardian, emergency contact, and, most importantly, the insurance policy holder. A final page required us to acknowledge that we agree to pay the bill in full at the time of service. That way they can reduce the cost of medicine by minimizing their billing department.

They were apparently successful at saving because they were able to afford rent in a shiny new suburban medical complex. I parked the car in their spacious lot, pulled the boys out, and plopped them in the stroller. We then walked through the entrance, and I smacked my forehead when I saw that I failed to take advantage of their valet service.

When I made the appointment, I assumed that I’d take all three children with my unassisted. Instead, I left Abbie at home with my mother, who happened to be visiting for the Independence Day holiday, and Ellie happened to have the morning off and wanted to come. When the waiting process began, I was glad we had the 1:1 child-adult ratio instead of the originally planned 3:1.

Our waits were short in the waiting room, and the secondary-waiting/examination room. Two short waits add up to one medium wait though, especially when I’m trying to keep Abbie from breaking sensitive medical diagnostic equipment while hoping the boys calm themselves back down. Instead, the time flew as I held one boy and Ellie held the other.

First, the doctor gave each boy a cursory examination to verify that the boys (a) had eyes, and (b) could see something. Second, the nurse applied drops to their eyes to dilate their pupils, giving them that creepy anime look. Then we waited 30-60 minutes for the drops to take full effect.

I can’t imagine how awful that wait would have been with three children, especially since they shuffled us into yet another waiting room with a few toys and a couple other patients of varying ages and levels of fury at having drops administered to their eyes. Instead of holding both boys simultaneously while hoping whatever Abbie just put in her mouth is non-toxic, Ellie and I held the boys around a train table and enjoyed the wait by playing with the train. The boys had never really seen a toy train, so this was a treat for them to watch the cars roll back and forth and occasionally bat at them like a less permanently destructive Godzilla. In fact, the entire visit turned into a good opportunity for the boys to play with toys without having a 2-year-old sister swoop up their toys, determine that they have no interest to her, and fling them** across the room.

Exactly 30-60 minutes later, they called us back into the examination room. The doctor completed the assessment by shining a bright light into their dilated pupils, and looking for something out of the ordinary, possibly magic gnomes. The boys tolerated the light very well considering I would have been squirming all over the room if someone did that to me.

The doctor’s verdict was the boys’ eyes were fine. She didn’t see any sign of an abnormality, so our pediatrician must have seen an optical illusion formed by the tight skin around their eyelids and aided by magic gnomes. The doctor did say that their vision is a little nearsighted when farsightedness is the norm for this age,*** so they may wind up in glasses in time for school.

Otherwise, everything looked good. All we had to do was pay our bill, and walk across the hot parking lot to our car. I sure could have used a valet service.

* They were born. They stayed in the NICU for a while. They got their immunization shots. Now they’re seeing you.
** She flings the toys, not the brothers.
*** Or maybe they were farsighted when they should be nearsighted. I can’t remember.

Monday, July 03, 2006

I Love You as Much as a Completed Blog Post

It’s pretty easy to find a book Abbie will enjoy. If a book has flaps to lift, she’ll love flipping through the pages as many as three times before permanently lifting every flap off the page, and then she’ll love reading it without having to go through the hassle of lifting the flaps every time. If a book tells a story with short sentences and bright pictures, she’ll love listening to daddy recite the story while flipping the pages one step ahead of me just to see if I have the book memorized yet. If a book shows pictures of objects organized by groups like things that are red, things that begin with “X,”* or things you wear, she’ll love flipping through the book at random so daddy has to look at the book instead of reading his newspaper while regurgitating the text from memory.

I never know which books will become her favorites, though; the ones that she’ll ask me to read over and over no matter how badly worn the binding is, pinching if necessary to draw my attention away from feeding her brothers. One of her current favorites is “I Love You As Much…” This book features soft watercolor drawings of various mother and child animal pairs with accompanying text comparing the mother’s love to immeasurable concept, saying I love you as much as the forest has trees, the desert is dry, or the sound made by one hand clapping. It’s cute in a Zen sort of way.

I don’t know why she chose it as a favorite. With its soft images and gentle text, it’s a soothing book, and she may enjoy the change of pace from the rest of her life that consists mostly of looking for things to eat or bounce on. It repeats the words “I love you” a lot, and she likely enjoys hearing that phrase at least as often as she hears “no, Abbie.” Then there are two of the last pages that state the mother loves as much as “the mountain is steep” and “the ocean is deep.” For some reason, she giggles whenever I make an “eep” sound, possibly because I poke her at every utterance.

I have a couple problems with the book, though. First, some of the comparisons are a bit odd. For example, the mother goat that loves her child as much as “the grass on the hill.” Does she mean there’re an infinite number of blades of grass on the hill, just like her infinite love? That’s touching. Or does she mean she loves her daughter as much as she enjoys eating the grass on a hill? That’s less touching, but probably more suited to a goat’s thought process. Or does she mean that the grass also loves her child, and her love is at least equivalent to that of the grass? That sounds like the authors love the grass a bit too much, if you catch my drift. There are other weird comparisons. Don’t get me started on the superficiality of the mother horse that loves her child as much as “a warm summer breeze.”

Second, I feel funny reading a book that focuses exclusively on a mother’s love. Not once does the book talk about a father’s love. That’s great that the mother mouse loves her child as much as the grain in the mill, but where’s the father mouse? Standing lookout for the mother owl that loves her child as much as a warm meal? I could substitute “father” for “mother” on a few pages to add a few words about a father’s love, but Abbie is having enough problems with language without having to figure out why the word “mother” is pronounced “father.” For this reason, I don’t like speaking words that are different from the printed text, unless I need to fix grammar for some reason, probably because Cookie Monster says something.

Otherwise it’s a good book. The pictures keep her attention. The words move fast enough for her to appreciate. The text is simple enough for me to memorize so I can continue reading my newspaper while “reading” to her.

* “Xylophone” and “x-ray” are the only members of this group, at least until someone figures out what “xenon” looks like.