July 4th

This July 4th we actually celebrated on July 3rd and 5th, as Hurricane Arthur rolled up the coast and through Massachusetts on the fourth.  The city of Boston rescheduled  fireworks to the third, and didn't even play the traditional 1812 Overture as a conclusion, as a thunderstorm broke as the fireworks ended.  I taught the morning of the fourth (international program!) and we headed to Cape Cod and into the storm.  It was slow going, very wet, and extremely windy, but well worth the drive.  We enjoyed a great weekend with friends and all the fireworks that were not lit on the fourth were shot off on the fifth.   We watched on the lawn, overlooking a bay and we had a view of at least four towns.  All the kids stayed up for the fireworks, though Vivian clung to me.  

Ducks in Row

Two days left of school in this endless school year and with everything going on, the house seems to be imploding around us.  I was cleaning and tidying up tonight when Vivian climbed up in a chair and dumped a pencil box full of crayons onto the floor, just kind of symbolism of how everything feels!

The only organizational feat that seems to have been accomplished is that the children will line up their ducks after bath.  The porch, backyard, and every room in the house are strewn with clothes, paper airplanes, toys, cracker remnants, and crayons, but the ducks are in a row.  

Sunglasses and Purses

They're pretty obsessed with sunglasses.  Vivian wants sunglasses and a purse, then brings her rain boots to me to out on, gets a spare key and goes to the baby gate at the top of the stairs and waits.  

Sometimes no one has plans to go out except for her, which leads to tears.  

Safety and Such

As parents, our job first and formost is to keep our children safe.  I think about the hours I spent researching car seats, cribs, and pretty much any large baby item that comes into the house (and filling out those registration card for when they are invetibly recalled).  Then there are the days where I watch the kids at the playground and imagine the falls they could take, the parking lot they could run or scooter into, walks where I think about cars backing out of driveways, them slipping in the bathtub, choking, it never ends, but you try to prevent it nonetheless.  Then those days come along when everything seems out of your control and you realize how fruitless the worry and concern are, because no matter what you prepare for, it's the unexpected that will catch you off guard.

Sunday was one of those days, where nothing really major went wrong, but I was shaken just the same and feeling inadequate in keeping the kids from harm.  I was at my parents' and we put Sam down for a nap, in the lovely all-white bed my mother has in the guest room.  White sheets, duvet cover, pillows, the whole thing.  We heard Sam call for me almost immediately, about fifteen minutes after Vivian had gone to sleep in the next room.  My mom went up to discover his nose was bleeding.  I pulled him out of the bed and took him into the bathroom where the blood just gushed, splashing the bathroom floor, soaking his shirt, even getting on his pants.  I am usually able to talk Sam through a nosebleed and it will stop fairly quickly.  Maybe the longest we've gone is 10-15 minutes, but this was a whole different thing.  There was blood everywhere, I wasn't as calm as I should have been, and Sam was wailing and crying, which made it worse.  I picked him up and brought him downstairs to the kitchen, at which point Vivian obviously started to scream.  My dad sat with Sam in his lap for the next half hour, while we tried to get it to stop.  It eventually did, but there was  lot of blood lost.  Joe had Sam wrapped in his lap with a towel, Roz had a screaming Vivian and loads of bloody laundry, and I kind of uselessly walked around with paper towels trying to call the pediatrician.  We went through a roll of paper towels, an outfit, and about ten stories to keep Sam still, before it was finished.  Three adults and one nosebleed- so glad I wasn't alone with the kids.
We left their house, leaving them with our mess from lunch and laundry from the nosebleed to head to a birthday party.  At which point my car, a Ford Escape, which have been under investigation for stalling like issues- went into limp mode.  Limp mode means that the car reduces it's own speed to about 5 miles an hour, despite the driver trying to accelerate.  The first time it happened I was in traffic on a residential street and could easily and safely pull over, and it immediately restarted.  So luckily this time I was able to feel that it was happening, put my hazards on and got across lanes of traffic before it totally lost power.  It restarted thankfully, but I was rattled.

We got to the birthday party just as the pediatrician's office returned the phone call about the bloody nose.  I chased Vivian up and down the street as I tried to talk to them.  Vivian falls at least ten times a day, as it is.  She moves quickly and has little fear.  She tumbles of the couch, slips on thresholds, toys, climbs onto chairs, coffee tables, beds, whatever she thinks is feasible, she will do.  So obviously she fell and scraped her knee on the sidewalk while I was on the phone.  I got off the phone with them, cleaned her knee and went into the party.  Chris was dealing with problems at work with tenants moving into apartments, so I was solo with the kids.  The birthday party featured a bouncy house, a swimming pool, and a river/stream at the bottom of a hill that ran through the backyard.  Kids were fishing in the water with nets.  With two young kids, it's like assessing the lesser of evils, where to let them play.  I told Sam we didn't have bathing suits with us and tried to remove him from my leg, where he was clinging and whining, from not napping and probably tired from his nosebleed, so that I could chase Vivian.  He finally got involved something and Vivian headed for the hill.  She kind of slid down and got to the water and grabbed a net.  I grabbed the back of her shirt and she started to walk into the water, immediately losing her balance and falling.  I was able to grab her arm, before she submerged and yank her entire body out of it.  She was coated from head to toe with mud, soaking wet, and completely bewildered.  I ran up the hill to  get her cleaned off in the kitchen sink, she was shaking and I was shaking and pretty much ready to leave, particularly since I now couldn't see Sam anywhere.

It all could have been worse, the kids were fine, just a little muddier and bloodier, but just a series of events that I would have preferred not to have.  The car is at the dealership where they are repairing it  and if it happens again, they swear up and down they'll give us a good deal on a trade in.  Everyday there is a that little moment of something, someone falling- Vivian out of the sandbox and scraping up her arm, Sam somersaulting off his scooter, losing sight of one of them while we are out and about, or reading about some unfortunate accident in the newspaper.  So many gray hairs to grow!

Drawing Pictures

The kids spent a long time, maybe a half hour, drawing pictures the other day.  In the photos below, you can see Sam starts out in one seat, and each time he got up to show me his picture, Vivian would immediately take his seat, until she had sat in each spot at the table.  

Sam draws our house, while Vivian forgot to use her paper.

Not sure if she's looking at his drawing or coveting his seat.

Sam drawing a rocket ship.

                                   

Drawing the planets (each planet has a person on it?), while Vivian focuses.

Trying to Take a Photo

Trying to snap a halfway decent photo today at the zoo.  Oh well.  I also tried to convince Sam to use the bathroom before we left the house.
"Sam, pee here.  The bathroom is a lot nicer here."
"Why?"
"I don't know.  It's cleaner.  Then we can enjoy the zoo without thinking about going to the bathroom."
"But why is it cleaner?"
"Because it is.  Less people use it."
"And animals?"
"What?"
"The animals don't use the bathroom at our house."
"Um... right."

It's Finally Spring

It was a long winter around here and has been a very cool spring.  Mother's Day weekend we went to see family in Long Island, and despite the fact it was mid May, many of the trees and flowers were in bloom, about a month later than usual.  The kids spent most the time outside, running around and enjoying, even in the rain!

Vivian enjoying the flowers.

Sam playing Hide n' Seek with friends.

Easter Eggs and Candy

For a few days after Sam finished his eggs in his Easter basket, he would locate eggs around the house that still had candy in them.  It took me maybe four days to figure out that he was finding an orange egg and suspiciously it always had a lone Hershey kiss in it.  Finally, I put two and two together and realized that each morning he was refilling it and hiding it, finding the same egg and enjoying the Hershey kiss.  We had a talk about how the Easter bunny had returned to it's hole until next year and the eggs had been already been found.

After that little situation was resolved, Sam came to me around ten in the morning and showed me his sparkling clean teeth that he had just brushed.  It was a little strange that he had decided to brush his teeth, but I went with it.  Later, I went to put some laundry away in our bedroom, and found shiny Hershey kiss wrappers on the floor.  I called Sam in and pointed them out.  He looked guiltly at them and put them in the trash.  Not quite as deceptive as he had hoped, but a step up from when he used to suggest I went "in the other room," but wouldn't tell me why, so that he could sneak candy.