It’s the day before Lucas’s fifth birthday and he’s currently zonked out with a fever of 101 degrees, down from 103 when he got home from school today. In fact, both Asher and Lucas are asleep in my bed, as I cannot very well leave either of them alone. I’m just hoping that Lucas recovers quickly enough to have his birthday celebration in the kindergarten tomorrow (both Ian and I are planning to spend the morning in his classroom), and that Asher doesn’t get sick too. We will probably have to reschedule the celebration. I wonder if perhaps the excitement of the party we had yesterday and tomorrow’s planned events was just too much.

They’re both so beautiful, lying side by side, faces turned toward the window through which the fresh breeze and sunlight that’s filtered through our birch trees comes. Both of my children have perfect rosy cheeks, dark blue eyes, and the longest eyelashes. Lucas’s skin is kissed with an early summer tan. His hair is wild and too long. It crashes around his face in light brown waves; right now it’s curly with sweat. Asher’s little chin quivers as he makes sucking motions in his sleep. Periodically, they sigh.

I watch them sleeping and marvel that I’ve been entrusted with their care. I’m honored and sometimes overwhelmed by the greatness of that responsibility.

For friends who have an online Waldorf toy store, Asher modeled some fancy German rattles and things. Here are some pics.

Well, Lucas will be 5 years old next Tuesday, May 1. He’s been excited about this birthday for about three months now, probably because he goes to school with children who are already 5 or even 6 years old. We are having a party with six of his school chums on Sunday. Ian is working diligently (even as I write at 10:40 p.m.) to complete the “shed” in time for the children to play on it on Sunday, and I must say, it’s looking wonderful! (I fervently hope it’s completed in time because entertaining a bunch of kids with party games is not really my thing. We want to turn them loose on this play structure and call it good.)

Other party preparations have begun as well. Honestly–getting Lucas to pick the guests was really tough. Every time we discussed it, the list of names changed. So, eventually, taking his variable list of all second-year Red Rosers and my desire to have some first-year kindergartners there, we compromised and came up with five boys and one girl.

Choosing a theme was equally frustrating. Again, he kept changing his mind. Eventually, I bought napkins with race cars on them. There. Decision made.

Balloons. Cake. Gifts and wrapping. Oh — food. We have to feed them, too. Take & bake pizza should work. Games? Ick. How about “obstacle course”? Bubble machine. Decorations. Goodie bags for guests.

Our family will get together on the 6th to celebrate. I just can’t hack two parties in one weekend.

Asher had a poo storm today. Well, since he can’t actually clean himself, let’s say “we had a poo storm today.” I didn’t want to open with that “we” lest you think my health and hygiene to be failing again.

poo storm. n. Chaos resulting when the baby poo leaks, bursts, squirts, or otherwise explosively escapes the confinement of a diaper of any description via leg hole or top rear. Poo rapidly spreads and stains anything that it comes into contact with, particularly legs, socks, feet, clothes, back, and hair. This event usually happens when there is no spare outfit and only 1 or 2 wipes left in the diaper bag.

A Word About Color for the Uninitiated
When shopping for baby clothes, buy yellow, even if you know the child’s gender to be blue or pink. Baby poo stains, as I mentioned, and is usually a bold, vibrant yellow–the goldenrod of your Crayolas, the gold of a gourmet artisanal mustard, the burnt yellow of Tuscan hills and Starbucks walls. If the outfit you purchase is yellow, it stands a reasonably good chance that it will be worn twice.

Anyway, back to our story. We were at Target doing some shopping. Asher was reclining in his baby bucket/stroller. Naturally, he was wearing a white designer outfit that was a gift from an upscale baby boutique, not the hand-me-downs I usually dress him in. Needless to say, the poo went everywhere. What made it even more humorous was the fact that I was trying on white skirts at the time.

This is exactly the type of thing that would have me in tears when Lucas was a baby: Oh the mess! The embarrassment! Why oh why didn’t I anticipate that this would happen? Why oh why did I have him dressed in a fancy outfit? Why or why don’t I have a spare?

After I cleaned Asher up the best I could, I admitted our poo disaster to the Target lady. She had a disinfectant spray to wipe up the bench.

The Poo Storm Cloud
1. The baby bucket and boutique outfit are stained

The Silver Lining
1. We were in the disabled dressing room–plenty of space to spread out
2. A convenient laminate bench served as a staging area for damage control
3. We did not ruin any Target merchandise
4. This time, I had plenty of wipes and a spare T-shirt in the diaper bag
5. I had two plastic bags in the diaper bag for icky, pooy garbage and icky, pooy clothes
6. The Target lady won’t remember me
7. Best of all, I laughed about it instead of being embarrassed

Asher is 11 weeks old now! He’s a very animated little guy, always looking around, always moving. In fact, his body is only still when he’s in a deep sleep. I often think that his twitching limbs prevent him from sleeping when he’s tired. Holding and cuddling a baby to sleep is a matter of immobilizing him so he can drift off! — come to think of it, the same is true of almost 5-year-olds!

Asher is losing his hair all around his head, just like Lucas did. He still has thick, straight hair at his neckline and a tuft on top that is a reddish brown. The new hair that’s coming in is blond.

His eyelashes are now incredibly long and his eyes are still a dark blue. They follow me around the room. His face lights up when I approach him to pick him up. I carry him in the sling a lot. (But not as much as I’d like to. It makes my back sore sometimes.) We bought Ian a sling of his own, so now he uses it to sling Asher too.

In the evenings, the sling is often the only thing that will keep Asher calm. The other night, he was crying so hard and so long, Ian took him for a ride in the car. (I cannot work or even think when he’s screaming like he’s in pain.) We try like hell to help Asher sleep through those evening hours of 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Lucas doesn’t like the screaming, but he also doesn’t like being told to be quiet all the time. Poor guy. We had a picnic dinner in the living room the other night because I was rocking a sleeping Asher in the rocking chair and I didn’t dare disturb him for fear he’d go off again.

He is starting to discover his hands. In certain positions he can bring them together and explore his own fingers. This is very cool! The next major skill will be developing binocular vision, so that grasping at objects can follow.

I’m holding in my hand bills for the medical treatment I received in Feb and March.

$105.06 pelvic ultrasound (there will be another one of these)
$482.34 CT scan abdomen
$108.56 Mercy ER
$3725.48 Mercy inpatient
$500.00 hospital admission
$?? perscriptions

Yikes.

The total hospitalization fee billed to my insurance was $98,000. I have to pay $3725.48 + $500.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have medical insurance. Without it, Mercy would own much of my house.

I’ve had it with chick lit. Not that I’ve read all that much of it, but what I’ve read has been plenty. I just read Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, and the truth is, I can’t tell you why I read it. I remember my mom loaned/gave me the paperback. I remember finishing a novel and stumbling out into my dark living room one night at about 10 p.m. looking for a new book to read. I guess I grabbed it cuz the cover was bright pink and visible in the dark.

I read it in two days but I don’t know why I read the whole thing. I hated the protagonist (the aforementioned shopaholic). She was fluffy, deceitful, pathetic, selfish beyond words, and shallow. She was neurotic, childish, and her priorities were wacked. She was in debt up to her eyeballs. She was a train wreck. Designer names were littered throughout the entire book. Yucky. Yuck.

She was basically a thief. And in the end, she wins. She is rewarded for her despicable behavior with a sensational new job, money to pay off her debts, all the clothes and shit she’s irresponsibly bought throughout the book, love and respect from her family, and a boyfriend who’s a multimillionaire. YUCK!

I can’t believe that this author has written seven shopaholic books!

P.S. I didn’t like Bridget Jones of Bridget Jones’ Diary either.

Asher is a chunk!

I have watched him plump up over the last 6-7 weeks. He now has great, magnificent cheeks. You might even call them jowls. Last week, at a doctor’s appointment, he weighed in at a whopping 15 pounds 4 ounces. That’s nearly double his birth weight in just 9 weeks!

Plea to the universe full of poeple who generously buy us baby clothes because baby clothes are so adorable and irresistable: PLEASE, NO MORE NEWBORN / 0-3 MONTH CLOTHES! These are almost always cut for babies weighing 12 pounds or less.

Last night I went through Asher’s clothes and pulled out dozens of outfits, many of which he only wore a few times. Some were never worn at all. They’re all totally cute and totally too small.

My grandmother was released from the nursing home last Friday.

We are all greatly relieved. Family members of my parents’ generation have been staying with Ro and Nana around the clock. (I think they were staying in the house with Nana during the nights while RoRo was in the hospital and then the nursing home recuperating. Nana’s got Alzheimer’s and they were afraid she might hurt herself or do something weird while RoRo was gone.)

I’ve been on the Cheer-Up Committee. (Kinda hard to commit to caring for RoRo when I have two small children that need constant attention.) I bring Asher and sometimes Lucas, too, to visit RoRo. I call it Baby Therapy. She holds Asher and enjoys it very much. Asher’s less keen on the scenario, but he tolerates it pretty well. RoRo was the envy of the nursing home because she had a baby to snuggle sometimes.

She has these baby-holding habits that she’s been practicing for well, probably 60+ years. She licks her thumb and forefinger and then tries to make the baby’s hair curl by wetting it and curling it around her finger. She also says “No, no, no, no, no” everytime the baby she’s holding starts to fuss, as if she’s taking it personally. When it’s time for Asher to nurse and I need to take him from her, she complains bitterly. She’d prefer it, I think, if I would hand her a bottle so she could feed him. If the baby cries when someone else is holding him, she asks “Are you pinching him?” Never fails. I guess when you’re 87 years old, your habits are pretty damned ingrained. But she loves them–every one of them.

Anyway, RoRo is doing much better now. As far as I can tell, she’s done saying wacky delusional things. I should ask my aunt Julie about that; she’s been on duty more than anyone since RoRo fell. She is back in her old chair in front of the TV. She’s eating more now than she did in the nursing home, where she complained about every single morsel they set before her. Her hip is healing well; the physical therapy has been very good for her. It may be that she’s stronger and more fit now post-surgery than she was before the broken hip. The family has removed all the area rugs in the house, at the nurses’ direction, because Ro tends to drag her foot and could trip again. Falling seems to be her specialty, but this last time was the worst of all the spills she’s taken over the years.

Easter was held at Ro and Nana’s house as usual. They were both radiant in pink pants suits (which was unusual for Nana because she has shunned that color her whole life). The family just proceeded to create the same exact Easter celebration that RoRo would have orchestrated, right down to the 12 dozen colored eggs for three children under 10 to find. Every single one of us got a bag full of candy, as usual.

The kids all got presents. Lucas enjoyed his present from RoRo this year much more than any stuffed bunny of years past: Tami, shoping on Ro’s behalf, bought him a dinosaur discovery kit that came with a block of chalk, chisel, hammer, and brush. Embedded in the block were six plastic dinosaurs to unearth. There’s also a dino activity book that he uses diligently when doing his “science homework.” Lucas also got several outfits.

Asher got a stuffed duck and some baby blue clothes. He didn’t seem too interested in any of the festivities, but he sure let me know when he’d reached his limit and needed help getting to sleep.

Last weekend, on Saturday, Lucas and I went on a date. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, we left Asher with Daddy and headed out to have some fun by ourselves. We started off with a trip to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Lucas has been there exactly three times in his life. I think I earned big points by letting him eat junk food like doughnuts. My favorite thing about that place is the machine that makes, rises, fries, and frosts the doughnuts: I actually think the doughnuts are gross. Anyway, he chose the doughnut shaped and decorated like an Easter egg. The allure of sprinkles is apparently irresistable to a 4-year-old.

We bought a new pirate jigsaw puzzle at Once Upon A Child, which is across the parking lot from the doughnut shop. I took the opportunity to grab a couple of 5T clothing items for him.

Then we headed over to Sunrise Mall. He played in the indoor play area (weird Alice-In-Wonderland inspired climbing structures, tunnels, slides, etc.) After a while we went to the Hallmark store and got a free balloon.

The Easter bunny was there at the mall, and kids were getting their photos taken with him. At first Lucas wasn’t interested. Then he changed his mind and said he wanted to sit with the bunny for a picture. I wasn’t too keen on paying $20 for a bunny portrait, but then Lucas suggested that we both sit with the bunny for the picture. I relented, reasoning that this was our date and if we got the picture, we’d have a nice memento. OK. We got in line. Exactly 60 seconds later, Lucas is cowering in tears behind me. He changed his mind again and decided he didn’t want to go anywhere near that bunny.

“OK, OK! This was your idea. I thought you wanted to take the picture. We don’t have to do it. I’m not going to make you sit with a giant, stranger bunny! Let’s go!” I tried to reassure him.

Unfortunately, our sugar indulgence bit us on the behind. The crash was upon us. As we left the mall, Lucas begged me in sequence for a smoothie, a pretzel, ice cream. Oh, and there is a food court at Sunrise Mall now. We listened to the guitarist playing in honor of its grand opening.