Category: Uncategorized

“Snow!?”

This morning there was a dusting of snow on the ground. What!?!? I kind of think of snow as not really being a possibility until Halloween, thanks to the infamous Halloween Blizzard of ’92. (Ask any Minnesotan about it and they will chew your ear off with stories about it.) Anywho, I was downstairs with Lewis and suddenly heard Art at the top of the stairs when we woke up this morning. “Snow?!?” I called back to him and said, “I know! Isn’t it weird?” “Is it real?” he asked. “Yeah, it’s real snow! Not a lot of it, but it’s snow.” “You’re silly, Mama.” And when I insisted it was real his first impulse was to say, “I want to taste it!”
I suited him up in Ben’s heavy sweatshirt, some mittens and and sneakers and he ran outside to eat the snow. He ate and ate and ate. He’s like a dog. And then when he came in his face was all cold and slow moving and he tried to offer some snow off his mittens for Lewis. Lewis declined.

Art likes Lew.

This morning Jess and I and the boys went to ECFE class. For the second half of the 2-hour class the parents go into a separate room to talk and leave the kids on their own. Art and Lewis have had no problem with us leaving, and today when we got back I snapped this photo before either of them saw us. Arthur was holding Lewis, playing with him, and more or less asserting his brotherness. For some reason there are few things in life that make me happier than knowing that Arthur really loves Lewis and cares about him.

What kind of snack?

My mom will attest to this, after watching the kids last weekend – Art is always asking for food.  "What can I eat?"  All day long.  It's sometimes kind of maddening trying to come up with another snack or to suffer the whining and rolling on the floor if the snack is not produced.  Here's is tonight's exchange, while watching our nightly pre-bedtime nature show.

Art: I want something to eat.
Me: [Pausing nature show and letting out a big sigh.] Do you want something hard and crunchy or soft?
Art: Soft.
Me: [Taking a moment to think something up.]  Cheese?
Art: Cheese is hard and flat and when you bend it, it cracks so I'll have to eat something else.
When you bend it, it cracks?  I tell you, I really am starting to believe that children under six are all obsessive-compulsive.  Can't eat cheese because it's flat?  So strange.  And what did he decide he wanted?  Cheerios.  So weird.

Three hours ago Lewis was about to fall on his face.

No afternoon naps and a lot of "Mama, come here!" had made me in need of a break.  I gave the boys some Bunny Grahams, plunked Lewis in a chair in the dining and went to the basement.  I brought down a load of laundry and took a pit stop at the computer to write a little blog post about being annoyed and  Art came down to see what I was doing.  Then we heard a big bang.  Then a cry.  

"I think Lewis fell down,"  Art said.  And we both went to see what happened.
Lewis had been climbing on the dining room chair I had sat him in when it tipped and he face planted on the floor.  Bloody, bloody gash over his eyebrow.  
While I was holding Lewis and trying to apply a bag of frozen peas to his wound I asked Art to get a gackoo from Lewis's room.  Art dutifully ran upstairs and came back with a yellow gackoo for his little brother.  (This from a boy who an hour earlier said, "My hands are cold so I can't walk!")  I kind of knew right away that it needed stitches but I waited 15 minutes before leaving just to be sure.  Then I was sure.  When I decided to go to Urgent Care I asked Art if he would like to go play at the neighbor's house or come with us.  He wanted to come with us.  He said we would need jackets because it's cold outside and he got the jackets off the coat hooks.  He said, "Here, Lewis!  You like this jacket, don't you?  Because it's red!"  
By now Lewis was totally recovered from the shock of his injury.  In fact, that only took a couple minutes to get over getting hurt.  But he still wouldn't let me put the peas on his boo-boo.  Meanwhile Art told me that I shouldn't have been in the basement, I should have been upstairs when Lewis fell down so he wouldn't have gotten hurt.  Kids.  They tell it like it is.
To get the stitches I had to hold Lewis's arms and the nurse held his head.  He screamed bloody murder while the doctor gave the anesthetic injections and Art stepped out of the room covering his ears.  But then I held Lewis and told him that part was over and Art came back in.  Now the little 1cm cut needed three stitches.  The doctor assured us that the area was completely numb and mentioned that some mothers had sung to their kids.  I asked Lewis if he would like me to sing him a song and he said, with the nurse and I holding him still again, "Hmmm hmmmm."  So I sang The Farmer in the Dell.  It's a current favorite.  While I sang Farmer in the Dell twice and Wheels on the Bus once the doctor sewed in three stitches and Lewis just locked his eyes on mine and listened.  He even giggled a little when I made a farting sound during Wheels on the Bus.  
On the drive home the boys were pretty tired.  By now it was 9:45.  Lewis fell asleep in the car and Art said, "Mama, when we get home I want to get my gackoo really fast and brush my teeth really fast and pee in the potty really fast and read books really fast so we can go to sleep because I'm really sleepy."
I find it incredibly ironic that I could stay perfectly cool headed and calm while Lewis got his stitches and the whole reason I retreated to the basement was because I was just annoyed with the kids.  It was a good whoop in the face for me, too.
p.s.  While all this happened Ben was shooting the best sporting event ever, according to him. It was a really great Twins game and he got home about half an hour after we did.

Mama and Papa had a night away!

Yesterday morning around 10am Ben and I left for a night in Wisconsin with relatives and Art, Lewis and Bubbe stayed back at the house. Ben and I had a great time with my cousins and aunts and uncles drinking beer and wine, eating cheese and crackers and lamb and having a poetry slam in honor of our dear cousin, daughter and niece, Nora. We laughed, cried and just had a really good time. And we slept in our tent in the cold, damp autumn air. So nice. We love sleeping in the tent.

Back at the house the kids had extended Bubbe-time making brownies, playing with toys and attending a neighborhood birthday party. When we got home around 7:45 they were on our bed reading books. Both kids smiled big, broad smiles when they saw us and laughed and laughed. It was a great reunion.
I know my mom had a good time, too. She was all smiles when we got home and when we called for reports she sounded happily busy and just in her element. I asked her for details. She said that she was cleaning up the rice off the floor after dinner with her hands and up comes Lewis holding the broom and dustpan! He had pulled them out from behind the fridge to help her. I asked Art what they did while Bubbe cooked and cleaned up and he said she wouldn’t let them touch the stove or be in the kitchen! Weird. I’ll have to ask about that.
All in all a good time away for everyone. Thanks, Bubbe! We’ll have to do that again soon!

Here’s the clan that was all staying at the cottage. We all went on a nature walk this morning. I called home from the walk to check in and Art wanted to know what I was doing. “I’m on a nature walk in a forest with Papa.” “How did you get in the forest?” “I drove on a road and then walked down a path.”


This is the “plant paparazzi”, as my sister called it. We were all looking at a tiny moss that had red tips and then everyone started taking pictures of it. When we were home tonight Art asked Ben and I at different times what we saw in the forest. Both Ben and I talked about the mushrooms, trees and a tiny red squirrel. When Ben mentioned the squirrel he asked, with enthusiasm, “And do you know what color it was?” “Was it red?” Papa had been scooped by his wife! I told Art all about that red squirrel when he quizzed me earlier.


Here’s Aunt Nance taking more pictures of the moss and plants on the trail. It was a really pleasant walk.

I’m proud of my brother.

Art and Lew’s uncle Josh teaches Latin at a school in St. Paul and he’s likely the best teacher of ALL TEACHERS, as evidenced by this wonderful note from a parent he just received (names removed):
————

Good morning,
I just wanted to take a few minutes to say thank you to you for making the learning of Latin so enjoyable for my daughter. As a new student to the school, she is learning many new things and trying to stay on top of it all. Everyday when she gets in the car I ask for “bests and worsts” from all of my kids. Her “best” is always Latin, along with some Mr. Garvin story. Thank you for being such a positive influence in her life daily and for “teaching” that learning is fun, especially a subject that could have been intimidating to a new 6th grader. We appreciate you.

A few minor things I dread during my day as a Stay-at-Home Mom

1.  Checking Lewis's diaper before leaving the house.  If it's poopy I'm probably in for a battle.  I have not yet found a reliable distraction/incentive for him to lay still while I change him so I am often wrestling with an extremely strong toddler while deftly avoiding getting poop on my hands, his socks and any nearby surfaces.

2.  "Mama, make your truck talk."  In fact, this is a running, inside-joke for me and Ben.  I hate it when Art asks me to make my truck talk.  What am I supposed to make it say!?!?  To make it worse, lately he's been saying, "Make your truck talk A LOT."
3.  Meal time.  Unless it's hot dogs.  Lewis is fine.  He eats anything and everything.  Art, on the other hand, is getting more and more restrictive about which foods are acceptable.  The family rule is that he can have something else if he doesn't like a dish that's new, but if it's something we've had before (with success) there will be no other options.  So putting the food out is rather stressful.  Will I have two children happily munching or will I have one child munching and one child pleading and possibly melting down wanting something else, something else, something else!  And then an increasingly hungry, cranky kid as time passes and he still hasn't gotten something else.  
5.  "Mama, I wanna play with [insert long-gone toy or any toy that is NOT in plain sight here]"  Art's memory is like a steel trap.  He forgets NOTHING.  Months after his battery powered chainsaw had "bit the dust" (ha!) he out-of-the-blue asked for it and could not be consoled, reasoned or ignored about it.  He wanted that toy and could not accept it's absence.  Dude is persistent!  It'll come in handy one day.  I know it will.