For the Birds

This morning we had Henry's friend, Parker, over all morning, which was fantastic. Henry does pretty well now playing with his friends, especially one-on-one. (He still gets shy in crowds, but hey, so do I, so this may be a trait that sticks around. Or suddenly disappears at age 40? I'm still hopeful). With Parker he seems especially comfortable, because we've been getting the two together since they were six months old. We spent a good bit of the morning playing outside in the shade of the trees in the front yard. Henry and Parker played around in the sprinkler, inventing a new game called "Bottoms in the Sprinkler" (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like), and in the water table. Charlie tagged along, keeping up as best he could. Everyone ended up soaked, but that goes without saying.

After the water play began to lose it's allure, it occurred to me: "Hey, we haven't shown Parker the baby birds in the nest over in our dogwood tree! He will love that!" Henry raced ahead to show Parker "his" baby birds, and Charlie and I followed close behind. When we got to the tree, I set Charlie on the ground and lifted Parker up to look in the nest at the three adorable fuzzy heads and gaping beaks (the nest is at about my eye level in the tree, which seems a little low to me, but then I'm no bird.) I lifted Parker up, and as we glanced into the nest, several thoughts raced through my mind in rapid succession: "Hmm, the babies must be really nestled down in their nest this morning;" "Oh dear Lord, they're not in there;" "Don't look down!! DO NOT LOOK DOWN!;" and, glancing down, "Abort! Abort!". On the ground, next to Charlie's shoe, a small, still, brown and white mound of feathers. I didn't have time to look for the other two babies; I had to keep the boys from seeing what I had just seen! I lowered Parker hastily to the ground and said in one breath, "Oh well they're not in there today they must have flown away good job little birds!" and abruptly herded the boys away from the tree, back toward the house. Henry and Parker looked puzzled. "But what about the...?" Henry asked. "Look, dandelions!" I said, and we moved on to blow dandelions from their stems. Whew! A close one. I'm not ready yet to try to explain nature's cruelty to Henry. Hell, I'm the woman who feels anxious every morning when approaching the fish tank for the first time of the day!!

Fishcapades

Welp, I missed another weekend of blogging last weekend, and for no good reason. I am physically unable to cast my memory back over more than seven days at a time to retrieve details, so week before last will have to be gone forever. I'm pretty sure it was fun, but we'll never know for sure. Man, sometimes I wish I were afflicted/endowed with that condition that causes one to remember the details of every day of one's life. I forget what that is called. Ha. Hold on, Googling..."autobiographical memory." That's it.

This past week was hot, and it's had me in a bit of a funk. My resting temperature is several degrees higher than that of the average human, and as a result, summer is my least favorite season, and I mean by far. (Visitors tend to wear a jacket or sweater in my house, and I think once when my Mom was here I found her nosing around for a ski suit and parka. She definitely brings like gloves and a scarf when she comes.) When I feel hot, I feel angry and peevish and other similar unpleasant adjectives, so I tend to try to stay indoors during the summer. Up until this week, that is, when I discovered that I can successfully manage both boys at a pool, provided that the water is no deeper than two and a half or three feet. Friday we went to a friend's house for a play date, and Henry and Charlie had such a good time they didn't want to leave. It was a little embarrassing, really, especially when coupled with the fact that Henry also invited himself inside for a snack just as everyone was leaving, then when we were inside, kept pointing at various food and asking if he could have also have some of that. Repeatedly.

On Monday we went to the FMC with friends and had the usual fun, except I enjoyed it more than usual because it was so cool inside. On Tuesday we received the exciting news that our friend Christina had had her baby boy, and this was definitely the highlight of the week. That night I went with Cindy and Kristin to visit them at the hospital, and holding baby Alex, who is about the most gorgeous newborn I've ever seen, gave me a feeling I did not expect. A feeling like, "Uh oh, I thought we were only having two children, but...." !!!! I believe it has passed now. Yes, it definitely has. Definitely. Definitely.

Wednesday morning, the boys and I ventured out to the pet store, just to look around. We started out with the cats, browsed through the dog treats (why, oh why is this Henry's favorite part of the store when there are real live animals?!), then wandered over to the fish tanks. That's when I remembered: our goldfish, Pokey, needed a new aquarium! I feel intense guilt pangs each time I pass his one gallon aquarium (yes, they make one gallon aquariums) and see him crammed in there, especially since I read online that one should provide at least three gallons of space for "each one inch of fish." Pokey is easily an inch and a half of fish, and although he never complains, sometimes he glances at me reproachfully just after I've fed him (any other time he is too busy begging me for food, food, please woman, give me some of that fish food there). So anyway, we picked out a nice three gallon tank for him and some plastic plants, and we were just about to head up to the register when we passed a tank full of plecostomus, known to the non-fish enthusiast as "those ugly black sucker fish who clean the scum from the tank," which Henry loves. He asked if we could buy one, "as a friend for Pokey," and I, having just consumed a fully caffeinated grande iced coffee from Starbucks and temporarily forgetful of the "three gallons per inch of fish" rule, said, "Sure!" So off we went to pay for Pokey's new home, and his new housekeeper. The employees at the pet store assured me that this three-inch long plecostomus was not an aggressive fish and would be fine housed with a goldfish in a three gallon tank. We left feeling excited about our purchases, and when we met our friends Megan, Sarah, and Logan at Chick-fil-A for lunch, we had to take the plecostomus inside because of the terrible heat. He was a good conversation piece.

Thursday morning, when I went to check on Pokey and "Genie" ("Jeannie"?), as Henry named him, Pokey looked a little piqued. He was holding what I believe to be his dorsal fin (the one on top?) in a peculiar way, and I immediately blamed Genie/Jeannie. I happened to think maybe I should double check online about placing a goldfish and a plecostomus in the same relatively small tank, so I did just that. Fish enthusiasts online provided anecdotes that terrified me and sent me running back to the tank to fish Pokey out of the new tank and put him back in his cramped old one-gallon tank: apparently plecostomus are relatively docile, except that the slime coat that covers the goldfish is delicious to them! Delicious. Once they notice this fact, and it's only a matter of time until they do, the goldfish is in a bad situation. The ensuing attack is unexpected and gory. Thursday evening, we sent Genie/Jeannie packing, back to the pet store, where we purchased a tiny white goldfish as Pokey's replacement roommate. Henry named him "Teeny," and they seem to be getting on well, although Teeny is a bit of a nervous type and seems to think his reflection is another tiny, white, jittery little goldfish.

Also Thursday morning, we had some friends over to play in the sprinkler in the front yard, where we still have a decent amount of shade in the morning, despite the loss of one of our Bradford pears during a storm a few months back. Coincidentally, at precisely the same time our guests began arriving, the man we hired to replace the Bradford pear showed up, blocked the driveway, and commandeered our hose (the hose we were supposed to be using to run the sprinkler and to fill up the kiddie pool and the water table). I forgave him, though, when I saw the gorgeous tulip poplar tree he'd brought to plant in the pear tree's place. It's really beautiful and about seven feet tall (or maybe more). The tree guy advised that I should water the tree every morning and night for a week or two, and I actually laughed out loud when he said this because I can't even find time to replace the filter on our water filtration pitcher, which was supposed to be changed in February. However, our friend Megan loaned us a sort of skirt that goes around the tree that you fill with water, and it releases the water slowly to the roots of the tree. This seems to be keeping our new tree happy, and I feel a thrill of pleasure every time we drive past our house and I see it standing there, all tall and healthy. The play date was a hit and ended with Henry and his friends opening up our box o' musical instruments and forming an impromptu band. Henry's friend Parker was especially enthusiastic about the trumpet, which was adorable and hilarious.

I already covered Friday. Saturday was our friend Claire's fourth birthday party. It is so fascinating to be able to watch our kids grow up with kids we've known almost their entire lives. The party was lots of fun, though a scary/hilarious moment came when Charlie, fully clothed, plunged headlong into the foot-deep kiddie pool. I was on Charlie duty but was busy snapping pictures of Henry whacking a pinata, so all I heard was a splash (F- on the mothering, there, Jill). Kristin snatched him out just in time, and he was scared and mad, and rightfully so. Cindy snapped a picture of the moment.

Charlie: Charlie's vocabulary is finally expanding. He has his own Charlie versions of ball, banana, water, bottle, up, dada, and mama. Russell and I were discussing his sweet little personality yesterday, and Russell said (and I agree) that the image that best captures his personality is him strutting along, smiling, head held high. He also has a habit of leaning his head way back, smiling, and exclaiming, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" when he is happy. Charlie is Daddy's boy right now, and he cries when Russell leaves the room or leaves for work. He is experiencing some pretty intense separation anxiety right now, and I can't really leave him with anyone but Russell, or hysterical screaming ensues, and that's not really fun for anyone. I don't mind this, because I know it means we are bonded, and I know it will pass.

Henry: Henry's most frequently used phrase right now is, "I can do it mySELF!" and that makes me so proud. He is fully, fully potty trained now, and that is more liberating than I realized it would be. Often he shuts the door and reminds me, "Mommy, I need my privacy!" He can also fully dress himself now (also liberating). He has picked up the habit of saying, "For real, Mommy!" when he is trying to convince me that he is earnest about something. I'm not sure where he got this, though I did hear Russell say it a few minutes ago. He also asked me recently, "When I grow up, will I still be Henry?"

Dealing With It

Ugh! Ugh, ugh, ugh. What a crummy few weeks our family has had. I am not even going to dignify them with description; they were that bad. Words like "amputation" and "massive pulmonary embolism" and the like have no place in this blog, anyway. I'm just moving forward, and after this week I will get back to documenting every fun experience we have with the boys. For now I am only going to focus on what the boys are doing developmentally.

Charlie: I gave Charlie his first hair cut a few weeks ago, because the mullet/wings he was growing in the back finally became intolerable to me. Russell didn't want me to cut it, but I finally did it anyway one afternoon while he was out with Henry somewhere. I saved the hair for his baby book (which is hilarious, because while I am good at saving items for the boys' baby books, I am terrible at actually placing anything in the baby books; it's all just deposited in boxes for that mystical, magical day when I have nothing else to do and can carefully complete the baby books. Of course I'll be so old then I probably won't even remember I had babies). He looks adorable! Charlie is walking everywhere these days; I can't believe a few short weeks ago he wasn't walking at all. He is also a professional stair climber. He can now spin around and around while standing, so he has a veritable spinning repertoire, having mastered the seated spin months ago. He still isn't talking much, except for "Dada" (of course!) but he understands lots of words. Charlie has a quick smile, and he uses it often. It seems like he is going to have a little bit of an overbite, or at least I hope so, because there is no physical trait that is more attractive to me than a slight overbite. That sounds weird, so I don't usually tell people, but it's true! Charlie's favorite thing is to be picked up and carried around while he points at various objects. The carrier is then obliged to hand him whatever item he points to, after being prompted by a commanding "Eesh!" He especially loves to be outdoors, and often he stands at the front door, pointing. I am trying to get them both outside at every possible opportunity. Currently we are experiencing a wave of thirteen-year cicadas, so that adds an extra element of interest to going outside. Finally, Charlie has become quite the eater. He'll eat pretty much anything you place in front of him, provided that: (1) it isn't baby food and (2) he is allowed to feed it to himself; he insists on this (fine by me!). This has not yet improved his nighttime milk demands, as I had hoped, but HE CANNOT WAKE EVERY THREE HOURS FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE, so in your face, life! I'm waiting him out.

Henry: I don't know enough kids who are Henry's age to have much of a point of reference, but I'm beginning to think Henry is very advanced for his age. Of course I think that, I'm his mother! But really. The things he says to me could come from the mouth of a teenager. Are all three-year-olds this mature and world-wise? Maybe they are. But I don't think so. He is currently very interested in crafts, especially painting with water colors, cutting anything with scissors (only while seated at the table!), and Play-doh. We don't ordinarily let Henry watch much television, just "Sesame Street," but over the past few weeks, what with all the illness and horribleness in our family (not talking about it), he has watched a lot of "Caillou," which is by far his favorite show now. It's about a four-year-old Canadian boy, and the parallels between his life and Henry's are uncanny - the show's creators have definitely done their homework and may even have been spying on us in our home. I had a brief talk with him yesterday about how we can't just sit around watching television all the time--as Russell told him, "You don't see Caillou sitting around watching television, do you?"--even though we watched a lot while we were sick. For the past few weeks, up until this week, the only thing Henry played with was some of Russell's old Star Wars and G.I. Joe men he retrieved from Russell's parents' house during a trip to Morristown. This week he discovered these little Lego men at Target, and that is his current infatuation. Each one costs $3 and comes in a little aluminum packet, unassembled. There are sixteen of them in the collection, and you don't know which one you're getting until you've purchased it and opened it and put it together, although really just seeing which head is in there gives it away. So far we've gotten the sailor, the Viking (!), the surfer girl, and the skater. I'm hoping the next one we get (I mean Henry gets) is the rocker guitar guy with the mohawk, but you don't get a say, you just take what you get, an important life lesson, I think. So it may be the geisha girl, or worse, one we already have, and we'll just have to deal with that.

On The Road Again

Just as I did last week, I'm writing this entry in the van, but this time we are headed in the opposite direction: back toward Morristown. We received the devastating news yesterday that in a few days, Russell's dad is going to have his leg amputated below the knee due to a diabetes-related bone infection, and we are going back to be there with them.

Monday of this week was overcast, so we joined some friends for story time at Barnes and Noble. I have no idea what the story was, so clearly it didn't make an impression on me, but I do remember it was something about recycling because the craft the kids did afterward involved cutting, gluing, pasting, and applying stickers to various recyclables collected by the B & N staff. The snack I also remember: animal crackers and milk. Perhaps for our purposes we should refer to this event as "Snack Time" rather than "Story Time." Afterward we went for lunch at Qdoba with our friends, and it was nice to see Henry interacting with two boys his own age. I made sure to mention to Henry that they are both in school already, just like he will be in August. He looked uncertain but (I think) a little interested.

On Tuesday we went to music time at the Gallatin library, where we spent thirty minutes singing and dancing to a variety of kids' songs that are becoming familiar to us nowthat we've attended a half dozen times or so ("The Shaky Egg," "We Are the Dinosaurs," a trilogy of the ABCsong, "Row Row Row," and "Twinkle Twinkle.") Charlie particularly enjoyed singing and dancing to the music. Afterward we went to the Whippoorwill for lunch with friends. Things were a bit rough with Charlie (he had missed his morning nap), and by that I mean he screamed throughout almost the entire lunch. We had fun anyway, and I attempted to cheer the waitress up by reminding her when we left that the remainder of her day should be easier by comparison. And by tipping her nicely. As we left the restaurant for home, I got a call that a friend had gone into labor, and her baby girl arrived safely later that evening, so that made the day special.

Wednesday was supposed to be a terribly stormy day, and it was - in Alabama. Three hundred plus people were killed that day after the biggest freaking tornado I've ever seen romped the state. In Hendersonville, thankfully, we never saw more than torrential rain, some thunder, and lightning. We (well, Russell) dragged a mattress downstairs to our designated tornado hiding place, the bathroom, just in case, and there it sits as I type, three days later. Since Wednesday, I have taken Henry to use the potty approximately eight times a day with that double mattress propped up against the wall in the tiny bathroom, and it's really starting to get to me. I've instructed Russell that the bathroom must be returned to its normal state immediately upon our return to Hendersonville next week. Anyway, Wednesday morning, we got out in the rain

with our friends Susie and James, Chiara and Eva, for a tour of the Hendersonville Police Department. Henry seemed a little intimidated by our tour guide, Corporal Something Or Other (Lloyd? Floyd?), a forty-something female officer whose demeanor jived perfectly with my past career experience with law enforcement officials. She seemed, shall we say, not terribly comfortable with children. As a sort of inside joke with myself, I thrust Charlie into her arms when I needed to lift Henry up to see something, and she became flustered, which I inwardly found hilarious. He of course began to cry immediately, which she attributed to all the guns and other weapons and tools on her work belt poking him in the side. She did a fine job of showing us around the police department, though. Henry and his friends learned about the importance of not talking to strangers when parents aren't around; wearing a seat belt; and knowing how to dial 911 in an emergency. (I am hesitant to teach him this last skill just yet, because I know he inevitably will dial it in a non-emergency, and local police departments in recent years have launched an ad campaign emphasizing the importance of only using 911 for emergencies. "For urgency without emergency, call eight six two, eight six oh oh..." I'm not sure I can teach a three year old A) how to distinguish an emergent situation from an urgent one, and B) how to dial 862-8600. I may live to regret this decision, or, more frighteningly, I may not live to regret this decision, but there you have it.) After the tour, we went out to eat with our friends at Backyard Burger. (Wow, we ate out a lot for lunch this week, oops.) Wednesday evening, as the storms that had earlier hit Alabama moved toward East Tennessee, I repeatedly called my parents each time I received notification on my iPhone of a tornado warning for Morristown. They sounded increasingly annoyed with each call, but I didn't care...better annoyed than dead or maimed, I say! I later found out that both of my sisters were also calling them to alert them of each warning, so they were getting three calls per warning and there were like six warnings, so...eighteen calls? I understood their annoyance a bit more at that point.

On Thursday, the boys and I had nothing planned. Nothing! It was fantastic. We did zero rushing - we just did things on our own schedule. I love an occasional day like this. Charlie got his morning nap in, then we all went to Publix to do some grocery shopping. The only thing of note during our trip occurred while we were in the makeup and personal hygiene aisle, Henry's new favorite aisle. Henry was doing his usual, opening up lip glosses and deodorants and such and smelling them. (I've previously written about his olfactory fascination.) Our rule is that he can only open the ones that aren't sealed up with plastic, so he's not removing the wrapping and opening them or anything. My thinking is that if they didn't want them opened, they would put plastic over them. How is a person supposed to select a fitting deodorant if she can't find out what it smells like first? I don't want to buy a deodorant smell-unsmelled, then get home only to find out it smells like Pinesol or Drakkar Noir or something. So anyway, Henry has very innocently removed the lid from a deodorant that called his name, with my approval, when the only unpleasant Publix employee I've ever encountered - she's in charge of stocking this aisle, I've seen her there before - walks right past me, bends down to Henry's level, snatches the deodorant from him and replaces the lid, and very sternly looks him right in the eye and shakes her head, "No NO!" over and over. Henry quickly backed away from her and came to my side, and I could see he was about to cry. Ordinarily I would have said something sort of passive-aggressive about her to Henry - "What a grump!" in a loud voice. However, in an effort to control my temper and teach Henry about respect for others' emotions, I just said, "Come on, Henry, let's go on to the dairy aisle," then I told him that the lady was probably nice but maybe having a bad day, and that he hadn't done anything wrong. (I recently read in a parenting book that in order to teach children about the emotional complexity of humans, parents should use unpleasant people as an opportunity to point out that others have bad days sometimes, too.) We'll probably go back later and rearrange the makeup section anyway, though.

On Friday morning, we went to a friend's house to watch the coverage of Prince William's marriage to Kate. It was a great theme for a play date. The little girls wore tiaras, and we had tea (well, I had coffee) and lots of dainty goodies, including crown-shaped sandwiches. We had a great time playing outdoors, and while we were there, Charlie began taking the most steps I've ever seen him take! Later that evening, as he walked around the kitchen to the applause of our whole family, we pronounced him officially a walker. Our friend Kristin took these pictures of Charlie outside at the royal party:

What the boys are doing now:

Henry: Well, on Easter, the Easter Bunny came and went, and, as promised, he left chocolate and took away all the "big boy diapers," which means that Henry has been forced to do all of his business in the potty. For the first few days, he didn't do a certain type of business anywhere, but finally, when things became urgent, he used the potty, and has been doing so every day since! Henry is very helpful around the house now, and just now he set the table for us at Grammy and Grandpa's house. He continues to be nicer and gentler with, and less jealous of, Charlie, so I'm hoping the troubles we had a few weeks ago were just a bad patch.

Charlie: I already mentioned that Charlie is walking. Often, when he does, he holds his hands above his head in victory, mouth open wide and smiling, going, "Ahhhhhhhhhh!" He is very proud of his new skill, and I am even more proud of him!

An Entry Typed Entirely on iPhone!

Well, it finally happened: I missed a week of blogging. I am determined that this was a fluke and not a new trend, and I have a good excuse! Last Saturday, April SIXTEENTH, I spent Jill Time working on our income tax return. It was even more fun than it sounds, and it ended not with my filing a completed return but with my filing for an extension, which was granted and allows me another six months of procrastination time. The highlights of the week I missed out on documenting included an Easter egg hunt, a trip to the zoo with our friends Melanie and Claudia, a visit to a fire station with our friends Jenny and Parker, and a tour of a third preschool for Henry that turned out to be The One. He starts school on August 8th and goes Tuesdays and Thursdays year round. We are really excited, and I had to tear him away from the room where he will have class, which I think is a pretty good sign. Also that week, we did away with both time outs as punishment (they weren't working) and treats as rewards for good behavior; this was after I read a book called Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. It has made me completely rethink my parenting style, and I think literally every parent should be made to read it, though I haven't figured out yet how to enforce that kind of law. Anyway, it's changed the way I deal with my kids, in a very positive way, and I hope it will be the solution to the jealousy issues we've been having with Henry. So far it seems to be working, but then I've been in Morristown all week, with lots of help from grandparents, and Henry's "issues" always seem much improved when he can have round-the-clock individual attention!

Which brings me to this week: the boys and I went to Morristown on Monday to help Mamaw and Papaw Moore, because Papaw is under the weather. Grammy drove down on Sunday to help us withthe trip on Monday, and I was glad she did, because you just never know about road trips. We spent the week at Grammy and Grandpa's, and they helped watch the boys while I helped Sharonrun the cash register at the store. The nights were rough because the three of us had to sleep in the bed together, and Mr. I-Still-Wake-Every-Two-Or-Three-Hours-Like-A-Newborn was in rare form. Also we missed Russell a lot. He had Good Friday off, though, so he joined us in Morristown for Easter weekend. As I type this, we are in the car on Easter Sunday, driving back to Hendersonville. The battery of our computer, fully charged when I placed it in the computer bag a few hours ago, has mysteriously depleted ninety percent of its charge, which explains why I am typing this entry with one finger, on the iPhone. In your face, computer! In your face.

I don't know if my mood is bad right now, or if it's our family troubles, or if it's the prospect of unpacking the kids and the van and the Easter candy in a few hours, or the prospect of returning to life in a town with no family nearby, or what, but I am having a terribly hard time drumming up anything positive or funny or entertaining to say here. Maybe you should stop reading now and just wait for next week's post. You could go see what's on television. No? OK, well there was one really funny thing that happened around midnight one morning in Morristown. I could tell you about that. Picture it: it's midnight, as I already mentioned, and the boys and I have been asleep for a couple of hours. We wake up because you-know-who hasn't had milk to drink in a couple of hours. I'm exhausted because I have been sleeping with both boys for a couple of nights, so it must have been like Thursday. So I grab Charlie and cradle him in my arm so I can give him the first of the six pack or so of bottles he drinks throughout each night. Meanwhile, Henry, who is lying on the bed next to us, is crying and crying, and I have no idea why. "Henry! HENRY!!!" I hiss, "Stop crying and tell me what's wrong!" I think maybe he is scared because it is very, very dark in the room where we are sleeping. He just keeps crying. As I continue prompting him to tell me why he's crying, Charlie is refusing his bottle, which is odd. Finally, "Charlie" surprises me by saying clearly, "Mommy, I don't WANT baby milk!" In my stupor, I had inadvertently grabbed Henry and tried to feed him a bottle of breast milk, while Charlie, starving, lay crying on the bed. I shared this story with family members later, and I got the impression they found it less hilarious than I did, so it's possible a level of sleep deprivation is required for it to be truly appreciated, but I still laugh when I think about it.

Here's what Henry and Charlie are up to right now:

Henry has begun calling us "Mom" and "Dad," so I guess he'll be getting his driver's license soon. He also continues to utter phrases that came straight from my mouth, which always takes me aback. "Mom, listen, I need to tell you something," he'll say seriously when he really wants my full attention. He has been protective of Charlie this week in Morristown, though again, I am hesitant to ascribe this to anything more than his having received lots of attention in Morristown. Still, it was nice to see! He had a really good time searching for Easter eggs this week with his grandparents, and one day he dyed eggs with each of his grandmothers separately, unbeknownst to the two of them.

Charlie is saying "Quack," "Bye bye," "Yay," and "Shh." When Russell was still in Hendersonville this week, and we were in Morristown, Charlie was very clearly saying "Dadadada" to him over the phone. One night we all slept in bed together, and I was saying, "Shh shh shh shh," to try to get Charlie to sleep, and he started saying it, too, and giggling. Then he and Henry would take turns saying it and giggling. Charlie has come up with a "move" of his own, totally unprompted: from a sitting position, he spins himself around 360 degrees, over and over, pausing between spins to acknowledge the applause and smiles that inevitably follow. "I ask you," he seems to demand, "could walking draw more attention than THIS?"

Some photos from our week:

But not loud like a train!

Holy whirlwind of a week! The things I had planned for us at the beginning of this week were distinctly different from the things that actually happened to us this week. Monday started off windy, but when has wind ever kept us from anything? Well, there was that one time the wind was so strong that...nope, never. Henry and Charlie and I headed out to Lowes' garden center to poke around. I pictured us exploring and discussing different species of plants and trees and flowers in a very fun, educational way, but instead we spent the bulk of our visit playing around and in the fountains. (This is not the diversion from our plans I mentioned a few sentences ago.) I pointed out to the boys, "Hey! Trees! Lowes sells trees! Did you know there were stores that sold trees?"because I kind of have a thing for trees (see the Arbor Day post from the "Henry Times." I think I did a post about that?), but Henry and Charlie only wanted to focus on the fountains, so we did that instead. It was getting very windy outside - I heard two male Lowes employees telling the older lady at the cash register in the garden center to "keep an eye on this weather," so we headed indoors to check out bird feeders. We ended up purchasing a Venus fly trap and a third hanging plant for our kitchen, some bird seed for our existing bird feeder, a bluebird house, and some garden gloves for Henry. Oh yeah, and some Swiss chard seeds, because Henry wanted seeds and that's what we had eaten the night before. As we checked out, we noticed the sky had opened up, and we were in Lowes with nary a poncho or an umbrella. The cashier offered to watch the boys while I went to get the van, and although she seemed perfectly nice, we decided to wait a minute for the rain to slack off, then make a run for it.

By the time we got back home, unpacked our purchases, changed clothes, had lunch, and downloaded a weather radio application for my iPhone (can't keep the actual radio in the bedroom during nap time - WAY too loud! This way I can get a silent notification on my phone if bad weather is headed our way) it was nap time. As we began our nap, we were under a tornado watch, but this is hardly unusual during springtime in Middle Tennessee. Charlie had opted out of his morning nap, so he was TI-RED. It was more difficult than usual to get him to go to sleep, which meant it took Henry longer than usual to go to sleep, but finally they dozed off. About twenty minutes later, I got a call from Russell. Now, Russell ordinarily would never dare to call during nap time, so I knew this was serious. Simultaneously, I got a bright red notification from the iPhone weather radio: tornado warning! This was what Russell was calling to tell me. Sumner County was under a tornado warning. It is a testament to my insanity where sleep and nap and schedules are concerned that I then actually posed this question: "Should I wake the boys and take them downstairs?" Russell quickly brought the situation into perspective for me, and I woke the boys and got them into the downstairs bathroom. Just as I did, we heard very loud sounds that didn't sound like a train. (I remember that because my first thought was, "Whoa, that was loud!" and the only-slightly-reassuring thought that followed quickly on its heels was, "But not loud like a train!" which I chose to interpret as incontrovertible proof that we were not experiencing a tornado.) I told my half-awake boys, "Stay here!" (Henry: "But I don't need to pee!") as I darted to the front door to look out the window. There I noticed three things: (1) it was raining very, very hard, and horizontally; (2) the standing trees in our front yard were blowing sideways; and (3) not all of the trees in our front yard were still standing. That was the loud sound: two thirds of one of our Bradford pears, the tree providing our yard with the most privacy from the street, had snapped off in two separate pieces. The picnic table was buried underneath it somewhere, and Henry's sand table had been moved, its cover gone. I took this in at a glance, then

headed back to the bathroom, where Henry was asking, "What's wrong, Mommy?" "Nothing!" I cried frantically, "Everything is fine!" I must have seemed a little concerned, though, because Henry decided at that point that Charlie was scared. "It's OK, Charlie, I'll hold your hand." (This really happened.) Once the storm was over, we went back to our naps, figuring we would deal with the whole tree situation at some later point. After all, all we'd really need was someone to remove the downed tree (we ended up getting our lawn guy to do it) and a replacement tree (Lowes sells trees!) and about twenty years for the tree to mature enough to provide the shade and privacy once offered by the Bradford pear (our grandkids will enjoy it!).

Tuesday we had plans to go into Nashville to have lunch with some of my old friends and coworkers, who would be meeting Charlie for the first time. These plans actually came into fruition, and we had a great time, but little did we know it would be the last social event of our week. (Our week's schedule had been a teensy bit too full, anyway, and I foresaw lots of rushing around with tired boys on my hands: Wednesday morning we planned to visit a fire station with our moms' group; Wednesday afternoon we would go to a birthday party; Thursday we would fly kites at the park with the moms' group; Friday we would attend another friend's birthday party and tour another preschool for Henry.) On Tuesday afternoon we got news from Russell's family that his grandfather was very ill, so we decided to make a trip to Morristown the following day. Wednesday was a relatively normal travel day; you know, six hours of packing for the trip, three hours of trip - normal. Thursday Russell went with his parents to visit Papaw Woody at a hospital in Oak Ridge, and the boys and I spent the day with my parents at their house. Grammy and Grandpa hid Easter eggs for Henry outside, a "test run," and blew bubbles with him in the yard. Charlie mostly spent his time exploring every inch of the house (he's totally unaware of ever having been here before, and at any rate, he wasn't able to explore the house before now) and harassing the cat. On Friday morning, Grandpa made blueberry and strawberry pancakes for us outdoors on his grill's griddle, then we blew more bubbles and looked for dandelions. At lunch we went to Russell's parents' store, where we hung out with them and Aunt Carrie and Baby Dylan for a while. In the evening, Aunt Wendy and Uncle David came for a visit, and we all went to eat Mexican food for dinner. Russell's grandfather's condition took a surprise turn for better, and he was moved from the ICU to a regular room at the hospital. We have plans to stay in Morristown until Sunday if he continues to improve. So, it wasn't the week we had planned, but it was a week with family, which we always, always, always welcome!

Ahhhhhbless you!

We went to three fun play dates this week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday - so I was required to devote a relatively small amount of brainpower to finding ways to occupy the boys. A welcome respite, I'll be honest. Wednesday's play date was special because it was our friend Cindy's annual Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) party. Our friend Claire is a CDH survivor, and we are always happy for a reason to celebrate her. Everyone was to wear turquoise in observance of the date, but only I was able to do so, as the boys don't own a single article of turquoise clothing. I dressed Charlie in blue and Henry in green (or maybe it was vice versa), my calculations being that blue + green = turquoise, but I'm not sure the other partygoers picked up on that. Probably they just thought, "Wow, she took care with her own dress but not her kids'! How festive!"

On Tuesday, we toured another potential preschool for Henry. This one is a for-profit, secular school, and it costs twice as much as the church-based one we toured last week. Unfortunately (for the school) I was not twice as impressed with it. The facility itself was obviously newer and more expensive, but the assistant director did not impress me - we stood at the front desk for ten minutes before anyone appeared in the window, though I should add that we were more than ten minutes late for our appointment, so maybe we were being punished? - and the teacher to student ratio was higher than I would have liked. In the classroom we visited, there were like eighteen three-year-olds with one teacher (who appeared to be about 25 years old) and one teacher's assistant (who was maybe 19 years old). They were seated at tables of four or five kids each, so at any given time, two or three of the tables were unaccompanied by a teacher. Many of them looked lost (I thought), and I mentally inserted Henry at one of the tables unattended by a teacher, and that was when I decided this was not the school for us. Now, I know he won't be able to have a teacher holding his hand all the time (he actually asked me the other day, "Mommy, will the teacher hold me?"!!!), but I would like to see him in a classroom with fewer students. After we left our tour, we met friends at the little walking trail next to the library and enjoyed the beautiful weather, playing in a dried-up creek bed that Henry pretended was the ocean. It was a good thing we got out that day, too, because the rest of the week was cool and intermittently rainy. On Tuesday night, my parents (Grammy and Grandpa), fresh from their trip to Israel, spent the night with us. They brought the boys toy camels and donkeys, and shirts with a screen-printed Elmo which read, "Shalom!" We were glad to have them back safely, and when they left the next morning, Henry said, "I hope you come back soon!" We are planning a trip to Morristown over Easter, and he asks every day if it is Easter yet.

On Thursday, we had the morning to ourselves, and after trying and failing to get Charlie to take his morning nap, we headed to Target. We looked around at a leisurely pace, spending probably an hour browsing through the store in our standard pick-up-an-item-of-interest-for-each-boy,-deposit-it-wherever-we-happen-to-be-when-interest-is-lost,-and-repeat fashion. I will most definitely go to shopper's hell, if it exists, for these habits (once I was in the grocery store with my mother-in-law and suggested that we just put an item back on the nearest shelf, rather than in its rightful spot, and she gave me an odd look and said, "Oh no, we don't do that," which made me wonder if something might be seriously wrong with me), but it's just too exhausting to heave ourselves around in that big red shopping cart and go back to return all those items to their designated places. We looked at action figures in the toy section, we checked out arts and crafts in the arts and crafts section, buying Henry two glue sticks he desperately needed, we perused shower curtains and bath mats for the upstairs bathroom, we bought a picture frame, we bought the ingredients to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies later that day (having just that morning sworn off sugar "for good this time"), we picked up a small bean bag chair for the play room, then thought better of it, wondering if we really had the space. Finally, we went to check out, and Henry said, "Mommy! Will you get Elmo for me? I was sitting on him." Henry was in the big part of the cart, the cart part, and he had brought an Elmo figure into the store with him, then dropped it into the cart when something else caught his attention. I looked underneath him, shifted the brown sugar and oats and chocolate chips around - no Elmo. Did I mention the cart is red? The same shade of red as Elmo? And it has Elmo-sized holes all over it? Elmo apparently had abandoned ship at some point on our journey. So what else could we do? We heaved the cart around and retraced our steps, calling out for Elmo. Henry mused that he was probably crying somewhere. I knew which path to follow because of the conspicuous items that littered the aisles where we had been. The search took us probably twenty minutes, but there was no sign of Elmo, and eventually we had to admit to ourselves that he was probably lost forever. Henry took it well, and we returned to the checkout line to load our items onto the belt. As I removed my purse from the platform beneath the cart, I noticed a red object interrupting the symmetry of the cart's lines: it was Elmo! He was with us all along! I mused that he was probably laughing down there the whole time, the smug little bastard, and I glared at him, returned him to Henry, and we all went home. We made cookies later that afternoon, and they were delicious!

Quickly, quickly, as the end of Jill Time is drawing nigh: What the boys are up to this week:

Charlie: Charlie will hold the phone up to his ear now, chubby little elbow pointing forward, and try to say "hello"!!!! I could not be more excited about this if he had actually invented the iPhone. I've also caught him saying or trying to say "ball," "dance," "night night," "mama," and "dada," and he is definitely saying "bye bye"! It's like all of a sudden, in the space of a week, he is getting the talking thing. He is eating solids better now, in no small part because I borrowed a book of blender baby food recipes from a friend. Apparently, he likes solids, he just doesn't like solids that taste bad! Anyway, he is still drinking WAY more breast milk than advised by any source, anywhere...not sure what to do about that. He currently enjoys a bottle at 8:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m., 2:00 a.m., and 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. And by "enjoys," I mean "demands," as in "accepts no substitute." Dr. Johnson, our pediatrician, says this is merely a bad habit which simply needs to be broken, and then he will sleep. Illuminating advice! Charlie has discovered that he likes to "help" me unload the dishwasher. This involves reaching in, grabbing anything knife-like and potentially deadly, and slicing it through the air before I can stop him. He then steps back to get away from me and bumps his head on the drawer that is open at head-level (Charlie's head), after which I pick him up and comfort him, then set him back down, and repeat until the dishwasher is empty. Another pastime he enjoys now is holding his hand immersed in a glass of cold drinking water; I think it may be some sort of endurance test he's doing. Maybe he will be a runner like I used to be!

Henry: the funniest thing I've noticed about Henry this week is the new fake sneeze he does. I know it's fake because instead of sounding like "Ahhhhhhchoo!" or something similar, it sounds like "Ahhhhblessyou!" and it cracks me up every time. He thinks "bless you" is part of the sneeze itself, not something you say after the sneeze. Get it? That's funny. He has been kinder to Charlie this week, and with less bribery. There is a certain bodily function that Henry still refuses to perform in a toilet, and every time he feels the urge, he tells me, I put a diaper on him, and he goes behind a chair - Henry: "I need my privacy!" Russell: "You know a good place to find privacy? In the bathroom!" - and then I change his diaper. So, we've devised an ingenius plan by which the Easter Bunny, when he comes to bring the eggs and candy and grass, will take away Henry's diapers, thereby forcing him to use the potty when nature calls. It's foolproof! Henry has already begun trying to reason his way out of this. Henry: "We'll have to buy some more diapers!" Me: "The Easter Bunny says we aren't allowed to buy any more." Henry: "You said the Easter Bunny couldn't talk...?" Me: (Long silence) then, "The Easter Bunny is taking away your diapers. You'll have to use the potty." We'll see how that goes...