I hope you both have a wonderful birthday, full of joy, sushi, and sweet loving. I think you’re awesome and I’m proud to be your friend.

February, 2008

October, 2006

Tonight, for a brief — but glorious — five minutes of rowdy singing and raucous laughter, I was a GOD to a 6-year-old boy:

"Pickle, pickle in a jar,
How I wonder what you are!
You swim in briny juice so sweet,
Like a little, purple beet.
Pickle, pickle in a jar,
How I wonder what you are!"

Asher now says "eat," “watch,” “clock,” “little,” “cookie,” "monster," "Cookie Monster," “Elmo,” “Elmo, la, la, la!” (which means "I want to see the Elmo song on YouTube"), “hippo,” “seal,” “whale,” “chips,” “yellow,” "blue," “purple” (though he does not correctly identify yellow, blue, or purple),  “snow,” “pow,” “pluggie,” "read," “blankie,” “pick up,” “tools,” “apple,” “pickle,” “butterfly,” “bee,” “moon,” “moo,” "baaa," "cluck," "honk," "peep," “oink,” “pig,” "fish," “juice,” "peeking," "peek-a-boo," "mine,"and “honey cake” (which is a honey flavored rice cake). He also runs around the house (when he’s feeling well) shouting "Gone cuckoo! Gone cuckoo!" in a sing-song voice. Today he said to my dad, "Papa gone cuckoo!" Perhaps my favorite new word is his plaintive "Why?"

That is approximately 45 new words in three weeks. Brains are neat.

Some people want the future to bring them flying cars.
Some want jet-powered backpacks.
Some want alternative energy to be abundant and cheap.
Some want world peace.

Me? Well, I want that stuff too. But right now, I’d be fucking ecstatic to have a vaccine against the common cold, and all its associated secondary infections.

Asher has a high fever, labored breathing, nasty cough, and lethargy from a bad ear infection, which is a bonus gift from last week’s cold virus. He feels awful.

(I know,  , it could be worse. He could be in a NICU incubator. I’m sending your nephews good, healthy vibes.)

I think tomorrowfrostee  and samayam  go to court to testify about what they know about stuff and nonsense and a long-ago time. I’m thinking of you guys and wishing you strength and good luck in facing a scary situation. I love you both. I hope the truth of Hestia goes with you.
 

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Originally uploaded by SarabellaE

This is what I made for the boys for Valentine’s Day, before our trip to the snow. They woke up last Saturday morning to a path of paper hearts on the floor leading to their gifts, wrapped in paper hearts with tissue coming out the top. They looked like little sacred flaming hearts! The boy gnome is for Lucas, the girl for Asher.

I bought the wood and rope doll bodies. Making them took three evening sewing sessions. I figured out the clothes myself, without a pattern. The blond hair is boucle yarn and the brunette is wool roving. The hats are glued on.

This past week in the cabin in Tahoe was a nice break in the typical Wilson routine, even though a lot of routine came along with us: We still had to feed the children, bathe them, put them to bed on time, deal with colds and vomiting, small squabbles, pay attention to them, entertain them, etc. But, on the other hand, this past week I also got to read a book, knit, work a little to keep up with my project milestones, take lots of photos, and play in the snow. I spent a lot of sweet time in the presence of my very favorite person in the world, my husband. He’s still as wonderful as I remembered. Somehow, even working on medical terminology of the urinary system isn’t so bad when you can watch the snow falling outside and you’re toasty warm and comfy.

We were able to meet up with some of Lucas’s classmates for a play date on Thursday. One boy in his class has a home in Strawberry, and we visited his family at the same time another classmate and her family were visiting. It was just 20 minutes’ drive up and back over the summit to see them. Unexpectedly, Lucas and Ian got to ride snowmobiles on an impromptu "track" across the street from Sam’s house. Lucas is a speed demon and a natural, and LOVED it! He flipped the thing over a few times, but fortunately he wasn’t hurt at all—no tears, no fear—and also fortunately, this happened out of my sight. I heard about it after the fact.

Asher has been picking up several new words a day! We’re just now hitting that amazing time when his language will explode into greater and greater complexity and variety. It’s exciting. Also, Asher is now sleeping through the night most of the time, or only wakes once. Ian’s been with him, so I slept well every night this week. I am once again a human being.

Now Lucas is sick with a cold and nasty cough. I’m glad we have two days to settle back into our home and normal life before school starts up on Monday. Hopefully everybody will be well enough to go their various ways. (Please!)

It’s Tuesday. We’re vacationing in Tahoe at the cabin. Lucas and Asher have the week off school, so we’ve sequestered ourselves in this little house surrounded by white. I asked Lucas whether he thought the landscape looked more like someone had glopped whipped cream everywhere or sprinkled the world with powdered sugar. At first he answered disdainfully, "Mom, it looks like snow fell from the sky and landed on the ground," in his superior, I’m-a-scientist voice. The one that tries so hard to dissect and analyze the world. The one that doesn’t believe in magic or miracles. After a moment, though, he offered his opinion: whipped cream. On the way up the hill, we had already agreed the stones in the river curving along the highway appeared to be wearing fluffy white hats.

Asher has a cold again, which seems unfair because he just got over one a week ago. Since we are comfortable and somewhat confined, it doesn’t impact our plans. I’m sorry he’s not feeling well, though. He (and Ian) had a tough night on Monday night, with phlegmy coughing, stuffy nose, and an abrupt rolling off the bed. Poor baby. He managed to barf on me again yesterday. I never was in the Girl Scouts, but I now feel strongly that I have earned my Vomit Endurance Badge.

Ian has been cooking up a series of fancy feasts for us. He says, "What else is there to do?" We’re going to let him feed us soup, cassoulet, steak, and more. Last night it was pork tenderloin rolls and fondue. This reminds me of trips we made here many years ago, before the kids, during which we spent our days cooking and baking pies from Apple Hills apples–among other things two people can do when there aren’t a bunch of kids around.

Anyway, we made a trip to South Lake Tahoe for groceries. I firmly believe Ian could now feed a small army this week. I’m not complaining.

So, yeah, we’re comfy now. (The first 12 hours here were freezing cold until we got the house warmed up.) We have a bunch of library books for the kiddos–new board books for Asher, who is insatiable for them, and some easy-reader books for Lucas. Ian’s reading about Muslim wackos and Western zealots in a book by Tariq Ali called, The Clash of the Fundamentalisms. I’ve picked up my first taste of Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride. I’m enjoying her writing. Her descriptions are rich and amazing, and remind me of  ’s word paintings.  

I have some work with me here. And I brought some craft stuff along too–some knitting and a project I’m making for the school auction fundraiser. It’s due in two weeks, so I had better start working on it.

Yesterday we sledded down a small hill next to the cabin. It took a lot of forcing to get Asher into his new snowsuit. He didn’t like his snow boots, especially. He cried a lot, flopped on the ground with noodley legs and yelled, "Big!" I guess heavy, bulky boots take some getting used to. He had to watch Lucas and Ian going down the hill on our fastest red saucer for a long time before he was calm enough and ready to try it. Then, clutched in Ian’s lap, he shouted "Whee!" as they slid down the hill. After several rides, he was ready to try walking. And, just as though the wind had shifted, he was then fine. He tromped manfully all over the snowy road, even running, with his nylon-padded legs going vweep, vweep, vweep in a steady rhythm.

I find it amusing that Lucas’s first school project—complete with that special kind of School Project Stress—was the making of 30 valentines for his classmates and teachers. The teacher’s letter was very clear about them NOT being store-bought valentines. I feel very glad that I managed to read that letter the day it was brought home because it motivated me to put valentines-making sessions on the calendar. Thirty valentines is a lot of work for someone who has a 42-minute attention span—and yes, I mean Lucas, but that might apply equally to me as well. So we (Ian, Lucas, and I) all tackled the valentines with dedication and diligence, beginning a week and a half ago and finishing last night—one day before the deadline. 

Lucas employed the paint spinner toy that we gave him for Christmas, dripping paint onto a square of paper and then spinning it to make star-bursty and swirly designs of red, blue, yellow, and green. We cut the square paintings into hearts. Lucas was inspired to make some into butterflies. We folded pink and light blue card stock into small greeting cards. We glued. We cut out more hearts. We wrote cute messages like, "I’m glad we’re buddies" and "Let’s have a play date" and "Dude, you’re cool," on the computer and printed and cut them out. We glued some more. Lucas wrote his name in every single card with a rainbow pencil. We added a touch of glitter glue for some bling. 

We are all happy with the outcome. The cards are lovely. Each one is unique. Lucas held out through the whole process, only flagging in enthusiasm once or twice. We got through it together and I’m proud of him.

I belong to a LJ community called Natural Family. Sometimes I really enjoy the posts I read there. Things like how to clean your home without the use of chemicals, what to do about breastfeeding difficulties, sleeping issues, etc. Mostly I lurk, sometimes I comment. I think I may have posted something there only once.

What I don’t like about this community is the number of people who are electing not to vaccinate their children for fear of vaccine injury, autism, or because it’s not "natural." I have spent brief periods of time wrestling with my feelings about vaccination, especially when it was looking like there might be a tie between certain vaccines, thimerosol (a mercurial antiseptic preservative in vaccines), and incidence of autism. But always Ian and I have decided in FAVOR of prevention via vaccines. Our son goes to a school in which not all children are vaccinated, so we feel strongly that Lucas and Asher should have the immunity. It’s a great gift of science that we can go through life fairly confident that our little darlings won’t die of childhood diseases like measles or diphtheria.

So, Ian, thank you for all your reassuring studies and data that you presented me to refute the one 1998 study claiming that autism came on within days of children receiving the MMR vaccine. Seems the scientist who made that claim has some explaining to do.