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. 

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Originally uploaded by SarabellaE

It took me a while, but I’ve finally sifted through all my Hawaii pictures and posted my favorites on Flickr, in case you want to see them.

Now, what do I do with these RAW images I shot as an experiment? Hmm …

The children are both sick. I’m sick. It’s affecting my mothering. I’m trying hard not to suck.

EDIT: It’s later now. I’m doing better. We’ve been knocking around the house all day. Right now, Lucas and I are trying to stay quiet so Asher can sleep. ‘Cuz it is really best for everyone that Asher has a proper nap. We have played this weird laser board game with mirrors, which neither of us gets. Fortunately we took a break for lunch before the frustration level got out of hand! Lucas has read Dick and Jane stories to me. I’ve read King Aurthur stories to him. Some Playhouse Disney has been watched. (I’m not sure. I don’t recall. Steve did it. I was dead at the time!) Lucas and I have had a lovely snuggle on the couch and I don’t suck at being a mom as much now as I did this morning. Hopefully Asher will wake cheerfully instead of grumpily.

I’m enjoying a new guide project. ("Enjoying" is a stretch, but the word adequately conveys that I’m happy to have the work.) My textbook is chugging along, mostly on schedule.

I’m pleased with how our weekend went, with Asher’s birthday party and all. It was just the right ratio of work to fun. We had family over for brunch from 10:30 to 1:30. The food was easy, thanks to Costco, and very yummy. We let folks assemble their own croissant sandwiches. We also served two types of quiche, dolmas, fruit salad, and banana nut bread. This allowed me to focus on making a splendid cake from scratch. It turned out great! Good ol’ Betty Crocker. We are fortunate in that all of the grandparents (three sets) get along so well. I think everybody had a good time. Asher got some more stuff, but not a ton more, so I’m glad it was kept to a reasonable amount of gifts: several books, several outfits, pjs, a couple of toys, a handmade hat, bath mitt puppets, etc. After everyone left, Asher napped, and we had the rest of the day to chill. Later on, we went on a bike ride to the newly completed nearby Patriot Park on Palm Avenue. (This is the field that sported a sign saying "Future Park" for about 20 years.)

On Sunday we went to an all-ages service at UUSS in which a Frog and Toad story was enacted, Lucas LEARNED TO READ, and we took a trip down to Capitol Aquarium to buy some more fish and accessories for our refurbished fish tank. (We have since lost two fish. Boo! "It’s the CIIIIIIR – CLE of LIIIIIIIFE.") I knitted a bit and we ate leftover croissant sandwiches. Yum. We bought some new books to read, too. So, that made for a basically perfect day.

Today I watched and listened while Lucas learned to read. Today was the first day that he tried sitting down with an easy reader book and started decoding. I not only heard him sounding out words, but I heard the distinct snap of his brain putting together various small skills into a coherent process. It was awesome.

As a Waldorf kid, Lucas is not expected to be reading in first grade. His class is still working on letters and sounds, internalizing them through stories and drawing. It’s a slow and methodical but creative process, and to people who only know the public school methods, it seems remedial, backward, and scary. (By contrast, Waldorf students learn the four math processes much earlier than public school kids. But I digress.)

Here’s the back story: One time several months ago we were at Barnes & Nobel Bookstore. I was going to buy Lucas a new chapter book for us to read aloud. At the time, he had eyes for nothing but the crappy movie- and TV-licensed books. He was picking out Power Rangers and Iron Man and Sponge Bob and stuff we don’t really want him to have. After a brief argument, he kind of went in the other direction. Instead of trying to convince me to let him get a book that was too old for him, he started begging for a babyish paperback about a puppy: Biscuit. It was a one-story picture book that cost over $5 and we would be through it in about 30 seconds. I said no. Eventually, we left the store with nothing.

A couple of weeks later, I found a hardback book with multiple Biscuit stories in it. Five of them for $7.98. I bought it and decided that when Lucas started reading, I’d give it to him as a special early reader book.

This morning Lucas declared he wanted to read one of Ian’s historical novels by Bernard Cornwall. "Come on, Dad. Let me read your book." I went to the shelf and took down Biscuit and handed it to him. He was happy with the gift, and then asked me to read it to him. I said no. "Read it yourself. I bought that for you to read to yourself."

To my surprise, he sat down with Daddy and started reading. It was a whim on my part, but seems to have been just the right amount of challenge to motivate him. Ian’s teaching experience came in handy. He had just the right touch. Lucas read a little, his little ego puffed way up, and then we left for church with Biscuit clutched tightly in his hands.

Later on, we went to B&N so Lucas could spend some of his own money. He bought two items himself. Ian and I bought him the old-fashioned Dick and Jane reader compilation. This afternoon and evening, Lucas has spent time reading from the Dick and Jane book. (It’s easier and the stories build on the skills little by little.)

Now he declares, "I LOVE reading! I’m going to spend my money only on books." He has called both grandmothers to announce that he now can read. I’m not sure exactly what they said to him, except he told me that my mother said "Congratulations! Welcome to the world of reading!" He is very proud.

(started Jan 28, 2009, and finished Jan 31, 2009)

Dear Asher,

It’s now only two days until your second birthday. I am rather dumfounded that it is already time for you to turn two, because although I’ve been with you nearly every day of your life, somehow it doesn’t seem like two whole years! You appear every day less like a baby and more like a small boy, which might seem obvious (or perhaps will seem obvious to you someday when you read this), but truly, it’s a remarkable transformation. I am humbled to be able to witness it and live it alongside you. I feel honored to be your guide.

What are you up to these days? Well, I see you reaching and growing in every direction, not the least of which is your developing language. You’re learning to talk! Just yesterday you said your name for the very first time! I said, “Who are you?” and you replied “Acha Baby.” Just a day previous you only said “Baby” or “Me!”

You now say “up,” “me,” “mama/mom,” “dada/dad,” “more,” “milk,” “wheel,” “big,” “ow,” “no,” “yeah,” “please,” “go,” “water,” “Papa,” “Syd,” “DeeDee,” “Uncle,” “Boo,” “VoVo,” “Lucas (Cah) ,” “G.G. ,” “Mimi,” “meow,” “eat,” “meat,” “whoa,” “whee!,” “noise,” “book,” “ew!,” “hot,” “hat,” “me,” “dirt” and “poop” … there are more. I’m just not remembering them all. So now, communicating with you is fun and funny, since it’s a mix of words and signs, and yes or no answers to questions we ask you. Three-word sentences are becoming fairly common. You also babble with great precision, enunciating carefully and using your hands for emphasis, like a little old man. Then you look at us like, “What the hell is the matter with you people? Don’t you understand English?!”

They other day you decided to go poop in the potty! Yay!

Physically, you’re getting strong. I’ve seen you step down single steps without holding onto anything, but when faced with two or more, you usually turn around and crawl down backward. You can kick a ball! You like to run the other way when we call you or ask you to come along. You’re pretty good at holding hands when we’re in the street or near traffic or in a parking lot. My heart melts whenever you ask to hold Lucas’s hand when we’re walking along. Seeing my boys walk hand-in-hand is wonderful.

You like to dig in the sand and dirt. You sometimes freak out when your hands are dirty, though. And it’s kind of funny. You urgently ask to me to wash them.

You like to play alongside Lucas, especially in his big-boy Legos, but sometimes you’re a terror to him, breaking his creations or scattering Legos all over the house. You watch Lucas so carefully, and then try to do whatever he does. If Lucas crawls on the floor pretending to be an animal, you drop down to your knees and try to make the same noises. If he is outside running around, you do the same. If he picks up a stick and points it, making a “pew, pew” noise, you do the same. In fact, despite my best efforts to keep gun play out of your life, you seem to have picked up on it first thing. Now you do it with anything at all—a stick, a rock, a Lego—aim and make a “pppbt” sound.

~~~Jan 31

You love to stack blocks, and also to play in the fresh laundry, especially if it’s warm or is full of socks. Socks are your favorites, and you throw handfuls of them over yourself. It’s a good thing that our house is the Haven of Matchless Socks; you are the only one who appreciates their worth.

Papa gave you a wonderful indoor push-wagon and you pile it full of things and push it around the house. You still like to push your alligator “lawn mower” that VoVo bought you, too. You enjoy chase-me games; we squeal as we run through the house after one another. You like to march around the kitchen island, especially if Lucas does it with you. You are learning to dance, and have your own special moves! Our after-dinner discos are a great ending to our busy days. We all boogie while your dad and I clear the table and do the dishes. These are joyful, boisterous moments that make us all laugh and enjoy each other. I like it when we all take hands and dance in a circle together.

Nighttime is still challenging for us. You are sleeping in your room in your big-boy bed, but you require my presence several times a night. We’ve only recently started trying to wean you, tapering off nursing times, and you don’t like the writing on the wall. At night, though, you still get Mama milk in bed. If I’m asleep in my room, you intrepidly march through the dark house to find me. I rise, take your hand, and you lead me back to your bed. This happens between two and four times every night. Many times, I just fall asleep with you and wake in your room in the morning.

The other night, you did something kind of atypical. When it was time to go to sleep, you kissed your Daddy, said “Bye, Dad,” and we went to your room, as usual. But you were holding a Dr. Seuss book (Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? if you must know), and you wanted me to read it to you. I said, “Time for sleeping,” and gently took it away from you. You cried and got angry, but settled down to nursing soon enough. Later on, in the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of you shrieking and crying. You weren’t coming to find me, as you usually do. Instead, I found you kneeling in front of your bookshelf in the dark, shrieking “Book! Mama! No, Mama! Book! Boooooook.” It was like you woke up 3 hours later, still mad at me for taking that book away from you!

So, we can see your stubborn side coming through, hints of the “terrible twos.” Your “will forces” are in evidence. The little struggles we have with you are over eating, diapering, changing activities when you don’t want to change, etc. These episodes are amusing and darling to us, even if they make the simplest tasks take twice as long.

Mostly, though, you are a cuddle bug, preferring my lap to anyone else’s. You are a boob man for sure, and would keep your hand permanently attached to my breast if I would let you. Which wouldn’t be so bad, really, except you occasionally pinch me really hard! You are quick to laugh, to smile. Nobody gets you giggling like Lucas can. You love your family members, asking after them when they aren’t home or haven’t visited. You are charming and playful. You act coy. People fall in love with you easily, just as we have.

We’ve just had a very full day, including a birthday party for you. All of your grandparents came, Ro, Nana, Kellie. It was a wonderful time although you shouted "No!" quite a lot. When people asked if you are now two years old, you resolutely said "No! Eight!" I baked you a special cake frosted with whipped cream and decorated with heart-shaped strawberries. You even liked it this year! (Last year you cried when we offered you birthday cake and ice-cream.)

It’s the end of the day. You’re in bed asleep and I am beat. And so I come to the mushy part: Asher, we are so delighted to have you. So thrilled you came into our family. You are a beam of sunshine. My little golden cub. We love you, we adore you, we cherish you. Happy second birthday, my dear son. Happy birthday!

Love always,
Mama

Thank you, Universe.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/29/ep.sepsis.infection/index.html?eref=rss_topstories