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January 31 OK, so it may not be flu...Flu lasts way longer.
Ben got sick right around 9:00 PM Monday night. I got sick two hours later. We spent most of the night up expelling our body fluids. We spent most of Tuesday sitting and lying on the couch, sipping one swallow of water every 15 minutes. Steve stayed home from work and washed clothes. Ben doesn't quite yet know to get to the toilet before throwing up so during the night I changed his linens and PJs at least twice during the night. Tuesday, Steve washed 6 sets of PJ's (one was mine), 2 sets of sheets, 1 quilt, 1 heavy snow blanket (as he calls it), two afghans, one pillow, one fleece blanket, 3 towels, and 2 loads of regular laundry while he was at it. Tuesday night went much more smoothly; Ben only woke up twice: once for a diaper change and once for a nightmare. Wednesday I woke up pretty much fine, tho tired. Ben still complained of tummy aches and headaches, but he got enough energy to be grouchy that he couldn't play with any of his friends. He hasn't really eaten anything today but he drank quite a bit so I think we're on the right track.
After checking out WebMD, it wasn't flu. It may have been food poisoning (campylobacter), rotavirus (usually kids develop immunity of some sort by 5-ish), or "stomach flu," which is just a generic term for all kinds of virus nasties that cause the same, thankfully short-lived, symptoms.
So, we look to be getting healthy just in time for the weekend.
Thank goodness. Stupid pinata game, part 3Viva Pinata! is full of very colorful cute creature. Too colorful. after an evening playing the game, whenever I close my eyes I see images of syrupents (Ben calls them dog-snakes) lying on their sides with visions of ill-sugar-plums wavering above their heads while they wait for the doctor to heal them.
It's very distracting.
Especially when it happens right before bed.
Sigh. January 29 Stupid pinata game, part 2Ben's garden is bigger than mine. Might be bigger than Steve's. We always have to play with his garden but he won't let me *do* anything. He just needs me for support when he forgets how to do something or his hands can't quite get the controller pointed in the right direction. I can't plant grass. I can't sell apples and hazelnuts. Can't romance whirlms to make baby whirlms. Can't pick up seeds. Can't pick up old apples before they make pinatas sick. Can't read the alerts letting us know that pinatas are sick.
All I get to do is watch Ben dig up his garden to make ponds so he can sometimes find lots and lots and lots of tokens (or chocolate coins, whichever you prefer). He loves this. His garden is 2/3 water and the only reason we have land is because he wanted to put down some glow rocks and he didn't have enough land to do it. I also get to watch Ben hit people with a shovel. If you hit the girl he hired to water his plants, she screams and drops a token or two (but, oddly enough, she doesn't quit. Or, at least, she hasn't yet). If you hit Seedos, he drops seeds and then starts planting weeds. We've hacked up quite a bit of poison ivy out of the garden. And the seeds it makes after you hack it up. If you whack Willy with the shovel, he just yells at you. If you hit Leafos enough times she'll take your shovel away.
But mostly we just dig holes for ponds.
Sigh.
I really want my own garden.
January 26 And now we enter a period of dis-equilibriumThere is a philosophy of child-rearing that states children go through phases every six months or so as they spiral upwards along their development curves. For six months, your child is cruising along; life is good; he's got things figured out; he's well behaved. Then comes the other six months, usually right before his birthday. He enters a period of dis-equilibrium. He's out of sorts; things confuse him; he's grumpy; he's busy assimilating new skills and developmental milestones as he approaches his next birthday.
In short, kids go thru angel/hellion cycles every six months.
So, if the state of dis-equilibrium means extra temper tantrums:
BEN: I want a snack!
MAMA: We're on our way to Miss Kari's. We'll get a snack then.
BEN: I want a snack NOW!! I'm soooooo thirsty! I'll die if I don't get a drink! [I swear I am not making this up. This does start as early as four.]
MAMA: We don't have anything in the car, Ben. We'll get something to drink at Miss Kari's.
BEN: NOOOOOOOooooooo! [Ben proceeds to kick his legs, flail his arms, and scream until we pull over and wait him out]
or back-talk [or sass, depending on your part of the country, or maybe the gender of your child. Is sass feminine?]
BEN: Papa works in building 911.
MAMA: Read it the other way, Ben.
BEN: NO! I like reading it right to left.
MAMA: Well, then no one will know what you're talking about.
BEN: Yes they will.
MAMA: No they won't, Ben. Read it the other way.
BEN: Yes they will!
MAMA: Ben, don't backtalk.
BEN: I'm not backtalking.
MAMA: Ben, this is backtalking. Stop it.
BEN: I'm NOT backtalking.
MAMA: Just be quiet. Please.
BEN: NO!
[Seriously, I'm not sure which one of us is four in that conversation. Sadly, a real one. And even more sadly, a common one]
or agression...
Ben pushes little Tad out of his way off the swing. Ben pushes my butt with his head when he doesn't get his way. Ben kicks the cats when they meow at him too many times.
...then we're deep into dis-equilibrium.
Can't wait till we get out of it.
On the plus side, we spent an hour at a new park today. Lots of slides. Lots of teeter-totters. Lots of space to run around. He had a blast. Till we had to go home. (And then just pick an example from above...) January 25 How to tell if your boy is sick
That's how we spent yesterday. But, just so you know, Ben seems to be feeling much better today. In fact, he'll be going to school today. And not just because I have an appointment I need to go to! January 24 Stupid pinata game...Steve got an XBox 360 for Christmas. Merry Christmas to Steve! Well, the 360 came with games. I didn't really pay attention to which games came with it when I coerced a friend of Steve's to go get it for me. I was vaguely aware that it came with a good game for kids with the weird name Viva Pinata! but figured it'd be a great opportunity for Steve and Ben to play games together.
Well, I was partly right. Ben does play the game; and he's quite good at the very first part before he gets bored. But by then the game has sucked in Steve and I.
What is this game? Well, it starts off with a sad woman named Leafos crying in the middle of an abandoned lot full of frying pans, ratty old doghouses, weeds, and other bits of junk. She gives you a task (create a garden) and a shovel (to create the garden with). You get to whack at the weedy grass, the junk, frying pans, Leafos, and the ground to create a nice loamy soil. (Be careful hitting Leafos, by the way. If you hit her too many times, she takes your shovel away. She'll give it back, but you do have to wait... And no, Ben wasn't the one who hit her. He knows hitting is wrong.) Ben likes this part, by the way. And the part that comes next: planting grass. And this is about where he gets bored. But you see, cleaning up and planting grass are only so that you can attract animal pinatas who will come to your garden and eat your plants (and each other). You can make them houses and mate them and sell them and doctor them up when they get ill. You can, in fact, grow quite attached to your little bunnycomb (oh, did I mention each pinata animal has a cutesy name?): growing him carrots. Building him a house. Attracting a mate. Building a little fenced enclosure to keep him safe. Only to watch him get eaten by a pretztail (looking an awful lot like a fox).
The game appeals to children because the pinatas are damn cute. And you get to whack things.
It appeals to me because I have a compulsive need to keep things orderly. And so I get sucked in to creating a perfect garden. I've already got a house for my whirlms, sparrowmints, and buzzlegums. Next up, getting the buzzlegums to "romance" and make babies...
And Steve's garden is even better! January 11 Snow sucks...At least here in Seattle.
Definitely a rough year here in the Pacific Northwest. An ice storm which shut down the city in November. 90 mph wind which cut power to us for three days and many people longer. And yesterday, another storm, this one dumping 3” of snow across the area. For a region without snowplows, that’s a pretty big deal. For an “eco-friendly” region like Seattle which refuses to put actual salt on the roads to keep them from freezing up, it’s a disaster.
Yesterday around 4:45 pm it started to snow. I left work a few minutes later and it was already coming down hard. I think we got the first inch in the first 15 minutes. It took me almost 45 minutes just to get from my building onto the highway. 520 was surprisingly open at first, but by the time I tried to get off in Redmond things were at a standstill. Marymoor park was pretty cool – all the lights for the soccer fields were on so you could really see it snowing hard. And, most strange – a giant heron was standing smack-dab in the middle of one of the fields. The stretch of road from 520 through Redmond was at a standstill. At this point I had been on the road for 1:30 and I really had to pee. Since traffic wasn’t moving, I figured I had nothing to lose so I pulled off at Family Pancake House, and then felt like a new man. (A friend wasn't wasn't so foresighted. He peed in his coffee cup...) Back in traffic (I was only 3 cars back from when I pulled off – not a good sign), things were still stopped. Eventually we saw a fire department SUV drive down the Redmond-Fall City road towards our area and 30 minutes later things started moving slowly again. I’m guessing those guys helped clear a couple of stuck cars.
By now it’s probably 7:30 or so. Thank goodness I stopped to pee. Another 30 minutes or so to get to Sahalee – not bad considering. By the time I got to the Grey Barn nursery at the bottom of the hill it was pretty obvious how screwed up things were. Cars were parked or abandoned everywhere – on Redmond-Fall City Road, on Sahalee, in the nursery parking lot, everywhere. On the sides of Sahalee cars were 2 or 3 deep. On both sides. There was barely room for one car to pass between. Some lady all decked out in snow gear comes up to my car and “helpfully” tells me that without chains no one can make it up the hill. She suggests just leaving my car and walking. I smile, say thanks, and inch forward.
After three and a half hours there is no way in hell I’m giving up now. A few of us keep inching forward until we get around the turn and realize what’s wrong. There are cars abandoned everywhere up the hill. On the on both sides, in the middle, it’s chaos. There’s a civilian at the bottom “directing” traffic. Apparently there’s someone else at the top and they have walkie-talkies so they can make sure only one person goes up or down at a time. This turns out to be quite necessary since only one car can fit through the abandoned cars. My turn comes, I shake off the fatigue that comes from sitting in the car for this long, and start up the hill.
Keep in mind the roads up to now were actually not that bad. The temperature never really dropped below 32 the whole time I was on the road, and the roads were mostly slushy or snowy, but not really all that iced up yet. As I start up the road I just keep moving at a nice even pace. I never really felt the car slip all the way up – let’s give a quick thanks for Audi Quattro All-Wheel Drive! Once at the top there’s no real traffic left. Pulling into the neighborhood there’s one final hill, but I figure if I made the last one this should be no problem. I finally pull into the garage at 9:10 PM. Almost 4 ½ hours for a commute that normally takes 25 minutes in rush-hour, 12 minutes without traffic. (Our friend, who lives near us, left work 15 minutes later. Took him FIVE and a half hours to come home. He finished off the day with hard liquor.) We went to McDonalds today for lunch just to get out of the house. Someone there had just come up Sahalee and said they counted 109 cars abandoned on the side of the road. I’m guessing Sammamish is spending the day towing people. I hope they also write tickets for blocking the roads. It’s really quite astounding how 3” of snow can destroy this city. Our esteemed Governor recently announce she plans to spend and extra several-billion dollars this year – my question is whether or not she’ll by some snow-plows.
January 08 And for 13 years...we give office supplies.
No, really! Not lace as the traditionalists suggest. Not furs or other textiles as contemporary gift givers suggest. Office supplies.
To celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. our friend babysat Ben Saturday while we shopped for a new desk for Steve. He's been using the same folding table since college. Since maybe even before college. Since I've known him, at any rate. That makes the ratty old thing about 15 years old. Steve's been searching for the perfect desk off and on for years. He's been eyeing one particular desk at Crate and Barrel for the past year, pretty consistently. We went to California Closets, Crate and Barrel, and Pottery Barn Saturday. And after much dithering, Steve chose a desk and two file cabinets.
Here's the desk:
 and the file cabinets:
and the desktop organizer: His new office will be set up in about a week once the pieces get delivered. As for me, well Sunday we went to Home Depot and bought closet organizers, a la California Closet tho waaaay cheaper. We (and by we I mean me, Steve, and Ben) emptied out all the crap in my office closet, ripped out the old hardware (Steve), patched the walls (me), painted (Steve), and installed the closet shelving system (Steve). I spent most of today putting stuff back. Neatly and organizationally perfect. Congratulations to us! |
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