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Originally uploaded by SarabellaE

Photos of our recent trek up the hill to Strawberry are on my flickr.

xoxox, with tongue

I’ve been thinking about cruelty, which is treacherous ground for me because I can get stuck in dark mental loops sometimes. The following incident falls into the "boys will be boys" category, or perhaps the "big siblings pick on small siblings" category.

Sunday night, after we returned from Strawberry, they boys took a shower together, as they often do. Lucas needs occasional reminders of why he’s in the shower, but can basically do all the jobs (washing hair and body) himself. Asher requires washing assistance provided by an adult, and mostly just plays in the water. Usually they have a wonderful time together and we hear shrieks of joy and giggles wafting through the house at this time of the evening. Since they have very different days and are often separated, having this bath/shower time to play together is good for them.

I recently bought Lucas a new type of body wash: Method body wash for kids. It comes in a cute bottle and you only have to squeeze it a little for the soap to squirt out the bottom valve. I’ve read that this brand contains no harmful chemicals and is cruelty-free.

Well it wasn’t cruelty-free on Sunday night.

Lucas squirted the body wash soap directly into Asher’s face. Asher cried and cried with soap bubbles all over his face, in his eyes and mouth. At first Ian told Lucas, "help him!", by which he meant, help him rinse the soap off gently. I think Lucas splashed a bunch of water directly in Asher’s face then. Nothing gentle about it. This didn’t help and made Asher feel madder and more freaked out. Meanwhile, Ian jumped in the shower to help get the soap off, but of course, the process of rinsing it off was also traumatic—Asher doesn’t care for water in his face. Even after Asher was cleaned up, his eyes were red and irritated and he was all amped up.

We came down on Lucas like a ton of bricks. Lots of shouting. No bedtime stories.

Neither Ian nor I could believe he could be so careless, so thoughtless, as to do this to his baby brother. I think Lucas simply didn’t think it through, and acted solely on mischievous impulse. There are a lot of mischievous impulses coursing through him these days.

Of course, Lucas repented when he saw how angry we were. Many tears were shed. Much pleading and begging ensued. "Are you going to put me out on the front lawn and make me find other parents?"

I almost, almost didn’t snuggle him. Withholding my loving attention is not something I do lightly; it is not a punishment I approve of because I generally believe parents may disapprove of a child’s behavior, but must never, never disapprove of the child. We had a long, long talk about why what he did to Asher was wrong. We told Lucas that we needed to trust that he would be kind to his brother, to trust that he wouldn’t hurt Asher. We laid it on pretty thick. 

"I promise, Mommy. I’ll never, never, ever be mean to Asher again. I promise. You can trust me. I’ll always be nice to him. I’ll never do it again."

I told Lucas that there was one thing that would never be tolerated in our home: cruelty. Cruelty to people, other family members, to animals, to parents. And especially not to Asher. Cruelty has no place here.

I made sure he knew what the word meant: "being mean on purpose to hurt someone."

Golf

We are home and safe. It was a nice weekend, full of good conversation, photo ops, beautiful Sierra vistas and a lake, fabulous food, a little poetry, a hammock, wine, walks, a stream for splashing and bridge-building, going to bed early, and, unfortunately, allergies for me. But it was all worthwhile. Mimi’s cabin is charming and decorated to the nines. She has impeccable taste and a love of artsy, unusual, old, funny things.

Asher only wrote on the furniture once. (Oh shit!) We feel we got away pretty lucky, considering all that our kids could easily have broken or ruined.

Asher is completely taken with Mimi; her name was the first word he uttered upon waking both mornings. He wanted to be with her all the time. He wanted to hold her hand and give kisses; he must have said "hi!" to her a thousand times (he has few conversation skills). Grandpa Glen is so, so tall and sometimes a little intimidating, but Asher didn’t seem to mind at all. He frequently poked GG with a stick, just to get his attention. Here’s a little teaser photo.

It was fun. I’m glad to be home now. Tomorrow is full of busyness.

We haven’t done much traveling for the last year or so, but today we’re heading out of town for the second weekend in a row! Oh, rapture! We are going to spend the weekend at Miriam’s cabin in Strawberry, near Lake Tahoe. We’ll be back on Sunday evening.

Her cabin is wonderful and full of rustic antiques and family heirlooms from her childhood home in the Idaho mountains—a log cabin her father and mother built. Last time we visited Miriam’s cabin with Grandpa Glen, Asher was only 6 months old. Now, he’s in full-on toddler mode and nothing precious is safe. I really, really hope that they sweep the place of things we could break before we arrive. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Goodbye, darlings. Have a great weekend.

Although …

my oldest son argues like a lawyer and still wets the bed
my youngest son throws tantrums that could strip paint of the walls
nearly a hundred matchless socks of a half-dozen different sizes are strewn about my living room
my business is far, far from where I want it to be
I haven’t seen many of my closest friends in at least two weeks, and some not for at least a month
my Dad is going to have a scary, chest-cracking heart surgery sometime soon
my husband and I haven’t had a date, or even three hours alone, in gods only know how long
my jeans are feeling tighter than I like them to be
my car needs a new timing belt and I don’t have the dough to fix it
ants have invaded my kitchen and are stocking up for the winter on kid crumbs and dribbles
my roots are showing and they’re streaked with gray …

tonight I am grateful.

We just finished a home-cooked dinner of Chilean sea bass and arugula salad with homemade apple vinaigrette dressing à la Chef Ian, and a creamy, black cherryish red wine that we purchased last June on my birthday wine-tasting tour. We also just finished a 15-minute dance-and-sing-your-heart-out-celebration just because it feels good to boogie to Neil Diamond music blasting out of Ian’s iPod, during which Lucas displayed his new eurythme moves and sought praise for his graceful dancing and Asher signed more, more, more music!

Life. Is. Good.

My dad is doing fine. The angiogram he had last Friday went well. They discovered that in addition to needing a new valve, he will need a new aorta because his is enlarged (stretched) and thus weakened. This knocks the urgency up a bit, I think. It also means life-long medication, if I understood my mom’s explanation correctly. We are waiting to hear the date of the surgery. Dad seems optimistic.
 
This past weekend we went to Yosemite for the wedding of my dear friend Kelly. It is the culmination of a whirlwind romance with Hal, her groom. A relatively small group (under 40?) of friends and family attended the camping trip/wedding, which took place on Cathedral Beach. The reception was held at the Ahwahnee hotel and lodge. It was a really nice group of people, most of whom we didn’t know. But we’ve been attending Ambrosia’s birthday parties since she was 2, so we did know a few close friends and family members. It was my first trip to Yosemite, and it was lovely. Such a beautiful valley! And the grandeur of the rocks was breathtaking, but as Ian wondered, we can’t really say why. They are just so incomprehensibly huge. (Not a very poetic description of a place that has inspired millions.) The weather was perfect, if a little too cold at night and in the early morning for my comfort. Our kids made lots of friends with the other children there, none of whom I disliked (bonus!). Both Asher and Lucas loved camping, and although I would like to visit fancy resorts, get massages and pedicures, and drink mai tais on the beach for vacations, I suspect that a great deal of camping is in my future.

Another first for me was being asked to photograph the wedding. Fortunately, the bride and groom asked several of us to photograph, so I didn’t feel 100 percent of the pressure. I did feel obligated to do my very best, however. I shot 2.5 gigs worth of pics. Some of them look really nice, I think. I tried to channel frostee  and t8bloom  a little, but certainly lacked their characteristic flair and vast knowledge. I’ll try to post a few of the best ones to my flickr account soon.

So, first family angiogram, first trip to Yosemite, first wedding photography gig, and one more first from the weekend before last: we touched a 6-foot alligator at the Reptile Show at the Sacramento Convention Center. This one, in fact (but this isn’t us):

Lucas did not manage to convince us to buy one of the thousands of snakes (or turtles, tortoises, tarantulas, scorpions, lizards, chameleons, frogs, or geckos) at the show. But it was a cool way to spend a few hours on a Sunday. I think people who are really into reptiles might be a little weird.
 

My dear father goes in for his angiogram on Friday sometime. They’re going to put a camera into his vein and take a peek at his heart. It should be a routine examination of his insides. (It will not result in immediate, emergency surgery. —This is my mantra.)

We think the doctors will schedule his valve replacement for sometime next month, which is an inconvenient time in my mother’s busy teaching schedule. Doesn’t matter though, because I’ll be around to help as needed. They first want a closer look. Probably they will replace his busted valve with a bovine valve.

I’m dealing with my emotions rather well, I think. I’m scared for my dad, but I know that the people working on him do this stuff all the time.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Dad lately. Unfortunately, on Friday while they do the angiogram, I have to leave town to make it to a wedding in Yosemite. I won’t be able to wait around anxiously with my mother—who says, "Don’t be ridiculous! Of course you shouldn’t wait around at the hospital. That would be a stupid waste of your time." She’s sentimental like that.

http://www.dooce.com/2008/09/15/being-better-homemaker

This is a witty and charming post by Dooce on parenting a preschooler. I have been there. I feel her pain. I like this woman for many reasons, not the least of which is because she cusses.