Eesh!

I have other plans for Jill Time today, so this post will be shorter and less detailed than usual, and with no pictures. (Now there's an enticing indroductory sentence!) I want to focus more on what the boys are doing at this point in their lives, rather than what we did each day of this week, so I'll just hit the highlights. On Tuesday, we toured a potential preschool for Henry. I was pleased with it, though I have nothing yet to compare it to, and I put down a deposit to hold a place for him there in the fall; we do plan to tour other schools before we make our final decision, though. Henry seemed to like the school well enough - he was very interested in the toys inside the classrooms, and the playground - but I think touring schools makes him nervous about being away from me. It makes me nervous, too! On Wednesday, we went to a fun Dr. Seuss party at Melanie's house. The boys went dressed as characters from Wacky Wednesday, naturally, because (A) it's our favorite Dr. Seuss book and (B) we're naturally wacky. I guess (A) is a function of (B). Henry was outwardly wacky in that he was wearing a backwards Hawaiian shirt, two different color socks, and two different shoes. Also, his hair, which is longish, was gelled into a stiff mohawk which remained mostly aloft until midway through the party, when it began to list and bend in awkward (wacky!) ways. Charlie's wackiness was limited to wearing two different color socks and a sign on his back that read, "I'm wacky." Not the most original costume, so he asserted his wackiness behaviorally while we were at the party by slipping and bashing his forehead on the hardwood floor (he still has a bruise) and by screaming his head off while I took Henry to the restroom. On Thursday, Charlie had his one-year checkup with Dr. Johnson, who persists in worrying about the hugeness of Charlie's head. This is despite the fact that we already put him through a CT scan to rule out head abnormalities, which he passed with flying colors. Other than that, he is doing swimmingly. He weighs 24 pounds and nine ounces, and developmentally he is splendid (which of course we already knew). On Friday, we went with our friends Christina and Maddie to the Adventure Science Center in Nashville, which was fantastic, and out for pizza afterward. When Henry and Maddie parted ways at the end of the day, she gave him a hug and a kiss, and as we walked away, he said, "I love Maddie." (!!!) Friday night, we took the boys to a children's ballet performance at the old Palace Theater in Gallatin, and they both enjoyed it. At the end, Henry got to go up on stage and learn some ballet moves. He didn't perform them on stage as the other kids did, watching instead, but he did try them out when we got home.

Charlie is going through so many changes right now, and I need to write them down before they pass us by. His main verbalization is something that sounds like "Eesh! Eesh!" This utterance is usually accompanied by pointing (also a new development), and it means, "I want that!" He has become a little...testy lately, not as laid back as I once thought he was. I think this is explained by his impatience to learn everything and frustration at not being able to make himself understood with language. I should teach him some sign language to help alleviate his frustration, but I have not done so...Henry and I did glance through a sign language book the other day and mention teaching Charlie some signs. Charlie loves to have Russell or me hold him while we walk around, letting him point at things hanging overhead, then lifting him up to touch them - light fixtures, fans, plants, anything hanging up high. He is not walking yet, although he has taken a few steps on several different occasions. He seems content to crawl when he is really intent on getting somewhere, but I can see in his eyes that he wants badly to walk. Charlie is learning to hit back when Henry comes at him, and I am not discouraging this! (He'll have "a character forged from conflict," Russell said.) I don't want them hitting each other, and it is a constant battle to keep Henry from hurting Charlie, but I do want them both to learn that it is OK to defend oneself when one is attacked. Charlie continues to be a terrible sleeper. I know it's not his fault, but he truly is atrocious at sleeping. I feel myself on the verge of a deep depression when I consider that he is now past the one-year mark and still waking every two, or at most three, hours every single night. Every single night! For over a year now! How am I still functioning? My mantra for the first year of his life was, "Just get through the first year," because after a year, Henry had begun to sleep, if not through the night, then at least in five- or six-hour stretches. Now I don't know how to cheer myself on...it's less heartening to say, "Some day he'll sleep through the night," but that's all I dare say now. I've stopped complaining about the issue to friends, because I know they get tired of hearing the same old whining, and I get tired of hearing it myself. But I am so very exhausted all the time, and so short-tempered. Arrrrrrrrggh. Charlie is a doll, though, such a joy to have around! I just wish he would sleep. Why won't he sleep? I keep asking myself what I'm supposed to learn from this situation, but I'm not coming up with much. Maybe I'm supposed to learn that there are some things I can't control, but OK, I've got it now, thanks, universe. Got it. Lesson learned. Check. Let's move on to another, less insanity-inducing lesson, shall we?

Henry! Henry is also changing rapidly. Today, for instance, he learned to cut with scissors. I'm pretty sure now he is going to be a lefty, like my sisters. He's displayed an interest in dancing, and for some time now, he has enjoyed watching "The Lawrence Welk Show," then emulating the tap dancers he sees. We went to a park last week with playground equipment manufactured circa 1978, and there were these concrete stairs to nowhere...about ten stairs up, a foot-wide platform on top, then ten stairs back town. Henry climbed up to the top of them, then, unexpectedly, proceeded to tap dance his way back down! I got it on video tape, and it is truly a sight to behold. Henry has more self awareness than many adults I know. He met a new friend the other day and after we parted ways, he said, "He's quiet like me, Mommy. I'm quiet sometimes. I'm shy sometimes." He seems a little concerned about being shy, which is probably a reflection of my being concerned that he is a little shy, and so I told him that I was very shy ("painfully shy" according to my kindergarten report card) when I was little, and he beamed at that and looked relieved. We practice talking and being friendly to others when we are out, and I think that is helping his confidence. When we were at the coffee shop drive thru today, he said hello to the barista and asked her her name! This was a huge step, and I could tell he felt proud of himself. I haven't spent much time trying to teach Henry numbers and letters - I feel like that is what preschool and kindergarten are for; now is for playing! - but somehow he has learned them. I think from "Sesame Street." I loaded some educational games onto my iPhone this week, and one of them is a letter identification game. To my surprise, he knows how to identify almost all of his letters! Ditto for shapes. So I guess that limited, tightly-controlled television policy we have is not a bad thing. Thank you, "Sesame Street"! I've brainwashed him into believing that commercials are evil (which they are), and so when we watch something we've taped on television (almost exclusively "King of the Hill," which we watch once a day, in the evening) and a commercial comes on, he screams, "NO!!!! Commercials!! NOOOOO!!!" That's my boy!

Week of March 13 - Part II - Celebrations!

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, and we went to our friend Megan's house for a party. The gorgeousness of the weather that day surpassed even that of the previous day, and we got some great pictures. The boys had a great time playing outdoors, and Henry made a new friend, Sam, who we are excited about. He seems temperamentally similar to Henry ("He's quiet like me, Mommy! I quiet sometimes.") Henry reminded me of his dear old Dad, clowning it up to impress the ladies that day. The girls were attempting to play jump rope, and he kept running headlong into the rope, disrupting the game and making them giggle (then making them giggle more by flopping down dramatically on the ground).

Friday was Charlie's big day...one year old! We didn't do a lot of celebrating that day; mostly we prepared for the party we had planned for Saturday morning. We went to Publix to buy provisions for party, and while we were there, we did tell every single Publix employee we encountered that it was Charlie's birthday. This won us A) lots of congratulations and B) a balloon for each boy from the man in the produce section. An hilarious moment came when he went to inflate the first balloon with helium and it burst with a loud bang. Henry and I laughed, Charlie looked startled, then laughed, too, and I screamed, "I'm hit!" when a piece of the balloon landed in my hair. The Publix man looked embarrassed but was good natured about it, as all Publix employees are about all things. It's kind of scary, actually. Friday night, Uncle Matthew, Aunt Carrie, and Baby Dylan arrived, having driven 300 plus miles just to attend the party.

Mamaw and Papaw Moore came Saturday morning in time for the party, having made the same journey, and our Sumner County friends arrived at 10:00. The weather was glorious, for an incredible fourth day in a row, and the kids were able to play outdoors after we ate. We sang happy birthday to the baby of the hour, and he seemed pleased. We gave him his own little cupcake to make a mess with, and he did, smearing it on his tray, on a little ball he had been holding, on his shirt, and in the general vicinity. He tasted the cupcake but did not eat much of it, giving me hope that Charlie did not get the sugar-is-crack-to-me gene that Henry and I, but not Russell, share. All in all, I think he enjoyed having a birthday party, and we enjoyed celebrating him. Here are the pictures:

Week of March 13 - Part I

Monday of this week was rainy. The boys and I had nothing in particular planned for the day, so we set out in the van and ended up at Ms. B's, a used book store in town. There I planted both of them at the very back of the store, where the children's books are found, and Charlie quickly got to work rearranging the young adult section. Henry and I found six new (well, used, but new to us) books in good condition: two more Madeline books, a book of fables, a book called More, More, More, Said the Baby, a picture story called The Red Book (which upon reading seems like a precursor to Flotsam) and The Gingerbread Man. The books cost $14 altogether, and just before paying, we realized we had some long-forgotten store credit slips buried at the very back of my coupon holder, in the amount of...$15! An auspicious beginning to our week.

On Tuesday we went with some friends from our moms' group to the huge indoor play area at Cornerstone Church in Madison. It is free and open to the public, and we go there on days when the weather is inclement, as it was on this day. Henry hung close to me and was reluctant to play, although he has played marvelously there on recent trips. I inquired about his hesitation, and he said he was afraid of climbing up the stairs (the play structure is three or four stories high). This is not the first time lately he has alluded to a fear of heights. I share this fear, and I don't do anything to allay it in Henry, as I consider it A) a healthy fear and B) a sign of advanced intelligence. At one point Hen needed to use the bathroom, and I left Charlie in the capable hands of Susie, who ordinarily is one of Charlie's favorite people. As we finished up and exited the bathroom upstairs, though, we heard the loud, lusty Cry of the Moore Boy, and sure enough, when we go back to him, Charlie was red-faced and screaming his head off. And so it is official: separation anxiety/stranger anxiety have set upon Charlie. That seems about right. It seems like Henry began to display these same fears at about this age. Sigh.

On Wednesday, we went with Melanie and Claudia to Warner Park Nature Center over in Bellevue, Russell's and my old stomping grounds. Since we lived there in 2002, they have added an impressive outdoor fenced play area for kids. The weather was unbelievably gorgeous, and we packed lunches to eat outside. In the interest of not reinventing the wheel, here is the park's own description of its play area, followed by pictures we took there, which I feel convey the experience as well as anything I can write (possibly I'm being lazy, though):

"Remember when you had hours of fun simply playing in a sand pit or dirt pile? Your toys were sticks, rocks, and cups. You made mud pies, truck lanes, and deep holes in the sand. You got dirty, but you had the time of your life. The Nature Center wants kids to experience this good, old fashion fun in our new Nature Play area. Just below the Learning Center you will see a bright ladybug gate on a very cool twig fence, and then you have to look for the secret tunnel entrance. Designed by Tara Armistead and funded by memorial contributions for her father, Dr. William Crenshaw, this exciting new play area includes a cedar wood playhouse, a stone wall in one corner, 2 dirt piles one of which has a slide on it where kids can slide into a huge sand pit next to a huge dirt pit. Plus, (and this is the most fun part) there is a spigot that funnels water into the dirt! Mud pies anyone?"

Nice Things Happen

The big event of this week was a baby shower we hosted at our house for our friends Jenny and Parker, who will be welcoming a new baby girl (Charley!) in May. On Monday morning, our friends Melanie and Claudia came over to entertain Henry and our Charlie while I cleaned the house in preparation for Tuesday morning's shower. Now, I could have cleaned the house on Sunday, when Russell was around, and saved Melanie the trip, but experience has taught me that cleaning up in preparation for company any earlier than the day before is a Sisyphean exercise in futility. Had I cleaned on Sunday, even Sunday evening, the whole place would have been trashed by Monday evening, at which point I would have had to begin cleaning anew. So anyway, the sun rose Tuesday morning on an uncluttered and cleaner-than-usual house bedecked with pink streamers and balloons. The shower was a success, except possibly for the fact that our small house had some difficulty comfortably accommodating all of Jenny's friends. She is one of those fun, warm, open people to whom others are naturally drawn, but our house is one of those fun, warm, smallish houses in which others naturally have trouble finding seating. So things were a little close. There was a tense moment (for me) when a mysterious chocolate substance was being ground into the den's carpet (the cake was strawberry and, astonishingly, nothing substantially chocolate was served, so I'm baffled about what it was, exactly...it looked like brownie. Could someone have snuck brownie into my home without my knowing it? Doubtful.) but overall, I think fun was had by most.

On Wednesday, we went to Peekaboo Play Town (Old Faithful) with our friends Cindy and Claire and Baby Ben. This was Charlie's last nonpaying trip (children over age one are charged $7, and his birthday is coming up next Friday), and he had so much fun it was as though he were trying to squeeze every drop of free-playing goodness out of our time there. Henry spent most of his time dressing up (as a knight, a fireman, a doctor, and, briefly, as a cheerleader) and climbing the five-foot rock wall, which he does proudly every time we visit now. Afterwards we all went to Qdoba for lunch, since it was Kids Eat Free Wednesday. Henry and Claire entertained themselves by running up and down the long bench seating shared by our tables and those next to us. I was OK with that (more or less...tense, but OK with it, generally), but I was not OK with what happened next: I glanced over to find that Henry, probably in a bid to impress Claire, was standing atop a table. Like a drunken bar dancer. In a crowded restaurant. This is not what I consider acceptable restaurant comportment, even for a three-year-old, and I conveyed that to him with words and not-so-subtle facial expressions. We left soon after.

Thursday we went to a play date for children in our stay-at-home moms' group who celebrate birthdays in March. This included Charlie and his buddy Colt, who is one day younger than him but has infinitely more hair. Charlie is learning to deal with this injustice (I've explained that hair is not our family's strong suit), and I think I've pretty much convinced him that bald is attractive, too, in a baby! We sang "Happy Birthday" to Charlie and Colt, and had cupcakes in their honor. As we sang, I was struck by how quickly the year has gone by. I was also struck with anxiety over planning Charlie's birthday party, which will be next Saturday and for which I have not even begun to prepare. I'm thinking I'll have a monkey on his cake; it's a little arbitrary, but he does like the sound I make when imitating a monkey, and he's one - he doesn't have anything that could properly be called "interests" yet. We're just having a few friends over to our house - I've kept it mostly to Charlie's friends, since it's his party - and Russell's family will be coming in from Morristown, too. (My parents will be away on a trip to Israel, and I'm so jealous of their freedom to be world travelers, but so proud of them, too, for taking advantage of this freedom!)

Thursday evening was extremely rough for our little family, because Henry was in a funk and bent on physically harming Charlie, despite being asked, told, ordered, and commanded not to do so, and despite having various toys taken away as punishment for doing so. The night ended with us putting Henry in timeout in the downstairs bathroom, door shut, after he grabbed Charlie around the neck in a chokehold. Russell, never, ever gets angry (It's a marvel! He has infinite patience! Infinite!), but he gets downright mad when Henry hurts Charlie. After the bathroom timeout, we just went to bed, thinking we would just start all over the next morning. I couldn't sleep at bedtime, though, as I was examining my own behavior during the day - I find that when my positive attitude flags, as it does at times, and when I don't spend enough real quality time with Henry, and when I don't make an effort to find new ways to entertain him, this is reflected in his behavior. I vowed to do better the next day.

On Friday morning, we had breakfast with friends, which was fantastic. Unfortunately for our friends, the breakfast was planned for 9:00 a.m., a time by which it is physically impossible for us to arrive anywhere, and I was only able to bring along my usual breakfast contribution: sweet breads and cakes purchased at the Starbucks drive-thru. I have grand plans for baking and taking impressive dishes to such breakfasts once the boys are a bit older, but we shall see. Henry was much, much kinder to Charlie on Friday, and I rewarded him with his first Cadbury egg during a grocery trip that afternoon, telling him, "See?? Nice things happen to you when you are nice to Charlie!" This seemed to make an impression. Friday evening, I went with my friend Susie to a big local kids' consignment sale, and I bought what will constitute the boys' entire spring wardrobe. We went out for pizza afterward, and it was nice to be able to talk sans children.

On Saturday (I can write about Saturday this week, because I am doing this entry on a Sunday, for a change!), the weather was gorgeous so we took the boys to Sanders Ferry Park, a park we don't visit that often. The boys played in the sand with a little girl who was there, and Henry spent a lot of time spinning round on a tire swing. Charlie was looking a little puny to me (I pride myself on being able to tell at a glance when the boys are sick, but I suppose all moms can do this?) and sure enough, when we got home, he threw up. (I'm pretty sure this is because I recently commented to a friend, innocently enough, that neither of my boys had ever had a stomach virus. I remember this because, being superstitious, I even knocked on wood after I said it. Which precaution apparently was ineffective.)

Charlie seemed better after nap time, though, and so we decided to take the boys to their first movie. There was only one G-rated offering, an unoriginal, painful-to-sit-through computer-generated animation called "Gnomeo and Juliet," so "Gnomeo and Juliet" it was. Henry enjoyed the experience, after getting over his initial anxiety about sitting in the dark ("Will there be SOME light?"), and he particularly enjoyed the popcorn and Milk Duds ("those chewy things"). Russell and I took turns entertaining Charlie throughout, and he made it through most of the movie before we began having to stand up and walk him around. This was our first trip to a movie theater since, we calculated, 2006, and the prices charged not only for admission but for concessions were unbelievably, ridiculously, breathtakingly exorbitant! WE SAW A VENDING MACHINE SELLING BOTTLED DASANI WATER FOR $4.75, and I mean $4.75 per bottle, not per six-pack. I'm pretty sure we will never go back to the movies - the whole environment was so incredibly artificial, it was comparable to being inside a casino, one of my all-time least favorite places to be - but we wanted Henry to have the experience at least once. I saved our ticket stubs for the boys' baby boxes, yes I said "boxes," the boxes into which I throw mementos I plan to one day arrange in their baby books. When we got home, Charlie threw up again. Henry ostentatiously offered him his current favorite truck as consolation (!), and we took that opportunity to remind him that good things happen when he is nice to Charlie. Positive reinforcement: 1. Negative reinforcement: 0. For this week, at least.

Making the Grade?

For whatever reason, the boys and I were largely on our own during the daytime hours this week. Sometimes we have weeks like that, when we don't see much of our friends and it's up to us to entertain ourselves as best we can. The pressure's really on me to come up with fun ways to amuse the boys when we're on our own like this, and I give myself a solid B- for my efforts this week (that may be overly generous, though). Monday we were supposed to have lunch with friends, but the morning was very stormy (Henry has already learned to fear tornadoes, and I hope he won't be plagued by the lifelong tornado nightmares with which my sisters and I are afflicted) and our plans were thwarted. Once the really severe storms had passed, we ventured out in the rain to Target. (D+).

Tuesday, I was determined to make up for Monday's lack of creativity, and I decided to take the boys to the airport in Nashville to see planes take off and land (A+!). We called the airport first to make sure that non-ticket-holders could actually pass through security and out to the terminals to see the planes, and it was a good thing we called, because as it turns out, they cannot. It was a gorgeous day, though, and I quickly came up with the somewhat less original idea of taking the boys to the Nashville Zoo (B). Once we had wakened Charlie from his morning nap, packed lunches, and driven into Nashville, we only had about an hour and a half to spend at the zoo, so we had to enter the zoo with a definite plan for what we wanted to see, and what we would have to put off seeing until a later trip. Henry really wanted to focus on monkeys, because we've been reading a book called Little Monkey Lost, which contains a variety of monkey species. Specifically, he wanted to find the uacaris, a species he favors for its angry crimson face. Now, the Nashville Zoo doesn't have uacaris, but we didn't know this for sure when we entered the zoo (I suspected as much, but I didn't want to burst his bubble unnecessarily). After passing the howling black gibbons just inside the zoo entrance, we set out on a loop the zoo map promised would have lemurs (which are monkeylike, at least) and guenons (which are definitely apes). Henry found these to be acceptable substitutes for the absent uacaris. Along the way we also saw meerkats, alligators, cassowaries, red pandas, a cougar, a clouded leopard, and a flock of astonishingly pink flamingos. We ended up at "Critter Encounters," a fenced barnyard where kids can touch, or at least come in very close proximity to, various beasts of burden, including goats (OK, I don't know if technically a goat is a beast of burden), donkeys, and camels. The lady zookeeper charged with caring for the goats was particularly (1) close with the goats - she knew each one's name - and (2) helpful in pointing out which goats were most amenable to brushing. (Apparently goats require brushing.) She provided Henry with a special goat brush, which he used shyly after a brief period of hesitation. After Critter Encounters, we shared a quick lunch of hummus and crackers, turkey and swiss sandwich, carrots, and baby food. Just before we finished eating, a low jet flew overhead, so we got to see our airplane that day after all (B+).

On Wednesday we went to a park in Gallatin with a group of mamas we don't get to hang out with too often, which is always nice (but C+). Charlie crawled in the grass and tried to eat pebbles while I alternately did finger sweeps of his mouth and pushed Henry in the swing. Henry was acting a little puny, and sure enough, Wednesday night, he came down with a fever of 103.5. He does this about twice a year: gets a really high fever for about twenty-four hours, with no other symptoms, then he's back to normal the next day. I think he has a super strong immune system, like his mom, and just burns to smithereens any invading bug he might encounter before it can make him really sick. So anyway, this ensured that we would be homebound on Thursday. No pressure that day to get us out and having meaningful life experiences, but no meaningful life experiences, either (D).

On Friday, Henry was back to himself and, perhaps inspired by Tuesday's trip to the zoo, we decided to go to the local pet store to look around (B-). We started as usual with the cats ("I want a cat like that, Mommy." "We already have a cat." "I want another cat." "No way.") then moved on to the birds, stopping briefly at the doggie treat bar, which Henry likes to dig around in with the scoopers. Then we checked out the rodents, where we briefly considered getting a dwarf hamster, which despite its being a rodent is unbelievably adorable. However, when I checked the bags of hamster litter to see how often the cage should be cleaned, I read that the hamster owner is advised to check the cage daily for signs of urine or fecal matter and change the litter weekly, or more often, I quickly employed my standard "We'll have to ask Daddy first" stalling tactic, and we moved on to the fish and reptiles. We almost escaped without buying anything, but then Henry noticed a shelf of little succulent plants, and we bought one of those to take home and repot, singing Sesame Street's "A plant needs water and sun and LOVE," as we left the store. The three of us ate lunch at Cafe Rakka afterward (hummus and pita, that's always a safe bet for everyone, I thought), but only one of us enjoyed the lunch (me). Charlie refused it outright, while Henry picked at it for a while and started wondering aloud about dessert.

OK, briefly, here's what the boys are up to this week:

Charlie: He's definitely waving hello now, and if he's holding something he's particularly enthused about, he'll hold it up and wave it at you. "Look at THIS!" He seems to have grasped the concept of willfully pestering Henry while Henry tries to play, and I'm pretty sure he'll be using this trick for the rest of his life. In the past day or so, he has begun insisting on holding his own bottle of milk, which he holds casually in one hand, sips from, lowers, then sips from again.

Henry: We've implemented a new "Gum for Kindness" plan, whereby if Henry is nice to Charlie all day (i.e., doesn't harm him physically all day), he receives a piece of gum to chew when Daddy comes home at the end of the day. Bribery is working out very nicely for us, better than anything else we've tried - time out, positive reinforcement, taking away toys - though for some reason it's not mentioned in the parenting books. Henry is also working on learning how to snap his own pants, and he's almost got it. An important life skill!