jools (also a beloved child) – Page 9

Category: jools (also a beloved child)

what's the frequency, kenneth

Posted on June 24, 2008 by wrekehavoc

this week, one of BC’s best pals is hanging out with us. because their names rhyme we decided they’d go by codenames. don’t ask how we got there, but BC’s pal is now going by moose and BC is going by the moniker of squirrel. (somewhere, jay ward is laughing. i know i am.) the plan is that every morning, we do something (or nothing), then every afternoon, the girls go over to the ice skating rink for skating camp. BC’s pal is one of the nicest kids around; they have been friends since they were about five or so, and having her around is a pleasure.

yesterday, things didn’t go completely to plan, though. jools had to stay home, as i needed to take him to the pediatrician’s to get his friday TB test checked. (happily, he is TB-free.) so i had two young ladies of around nine and one little newly-minted five year old. jools only wanted to play with the girls, and the girls preferred playing without his presence. there was much whining and gnashing of teeth. i took them to one of our great sprinkler parks, hoping that there would be something for everyone. and there was, for a time, until jools was too chilly and moose needed a knee repair after getting a bit of a scrape.

re-enter the whining. i don’t think i have ever seen jools so whiny. it was frustrating. hours and hours of never-ending whining. they took my scooter! they won’t let me in BC’s room! they don’t want me around! as the youngest child in my family, i knew all-too-well the joys of this scenario, as i experienced in many times over. i talked to him about it, too. but as he was over-the-top in his mood, i was beginning to wonder whether he was actually not well.

we dropped the girls off at camp. i encountered an obnoxious parking deck checkout woman who looked at her nails while my free 15 minutes in the parking deck turned into 16 minutes and a $1 fee. we hit the doctor’s office — no TB, remember? and then, we went for a swim, just mr. whiny-pants and me. and d’ya know something? the dude was happy. he was swimming to me, diving after his spiderman dive stick, and playing with his little girlfriend, jo-jo. in fact, when he gave his dive stick to jo-jo to borrow and some young cad of about their age came by and took it from her, you had to see mr. man inflate himself and yank it back. i thought they were going to come to blows, so i ambled over, only to watch jools get out of the pool and put the dive stick back into my beach bag. he then returned and just continued to swim with jo, who was not bothered by the loss of the stick (and who then got whacked in the head by a volleyball gone wrong. poor kid.)

all in all, a most pleasant afternoon.

we picked up the girls. moose is a more skilled skater than is squirrel, and apparently, the powers that be at the rink noticed this and wanted to place her in a different camp. no, moose told them, my father signed me up for this camp and this is where i want to be. what a loyal, sweet girl! i dropped off moose, and the fighting continued.

ah, sibling rivalry. is there no one it can’t unhinge?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fxfDRYGtjw&hl=en

pictures of you

Posted on June 19, 2008 by wrekehavoc

props to onthecurb for stealing this groovy idea. and i’m stealing her verbage, in case kids want to try this at home:

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s Flickr Toys: mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

1. Sheryl Crow -Vancouver, 2. Peanut Butter Cup Heart, 3. Toms River High School North Marching Mariners, 4. eccentric beauty, 5. you really don’t have a blog?, 6. Fishin’ Remuz, 7. Arched people, 8. Spicy Mini Chocolate Lava Cakes, 9. We are fuckin Rock Stars, 10. wildwood crest – windblown, 11. colorful world12. Not available13. Not available14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

twisting by the pool

Posted on June 8, 2008 by wrekehavoc

we belong to our community pool. it’s hard to believe, in fact, how much it costs to be a member of said pool, and yet, we do it. there are not many options where we live; we can’t actually put one into our backyard (besides the overwhelming expense, our back yard is a bit of a luge run), and it’s close to the house. yes, we are lemmings.

anyway, in years past, we have not known anyone at our pool, save for another family from our synagogue. i have actually tried making friends, but apparently, there is a huge sign on my forehead that says: avoid! avoid! she has a strange sense of humor, and her hair is bad! but this year, as BC goes to school with a lot of the kids from our neighborhood, i figure we will meet plenty of the people who swim.

today, we went to the pool. luckily, our new neighbors were there. wow. who knew that the pool experience is so much more fun when people actually talk to you! BC played with our neighbor’s two kids, while jools hung mostly with BS and i. and lo, and behold: the dude, whose feet touch the 3 foot bottom on tiptoe, actually hit some milestones, all in one day.

swim without waterwings: check.

swim with head underwater from mom to dad: check.

jump in pool and recover himself enough to swim to appointed adult: check.

so very proud i am. truly.

it would have been a completely perfect day had the boys BC knew from school not come around and started calling jools stupid! these are third grade boys going off on a five year old. i wasn’t there — BS witnessed it. and while BC was outraged for her brother (yes, the same brother she thinks has psychological problems and, in her professional opinion, needs speech therapy), BS told her to ignore the boys. why should she care what they think?

clearly, i need to let BS know that this is not the way bombastic me would have handled this. see, i take no prisoners and wear my mom badge proudly. and i have no problem with taking a boy by the hand and marching him to his mother, asking her whether she approves of her son taking on another child nearly 5 years younger than him, unprovoked, and calling him denegrating names.

and you wonder why other people avoid me at the pool.

piece o' my heart

Posted on June 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

welcome to crazy-busy central, where, at the rate we’re all going, someone’s going to shoot out an eye. jools is graduating from preschool next week; BC is hugging trees at school (as uncle larry put it, though they’re actually simply identifying them. but you know uncle larry, AKA the man who is to the right of attila the hun, will never shy away from an opportunity to put a political slant on a situation, joker that he always is…); and i’ve had a date this morning with a cardiologist.

see, i just don’t have enough specialists in my life at the moment, so i thought i’d go for the gold. i’ve been having pains in my heart and weakness that radiates down my left arm and into the left side of my neck and head. i feel like a crazy person, but BS strongly suggested that i’m not and that i need to take care of myself (as did my parents), so i broke down and ended up at a cardiologist, someone who seems quite approachable. my blood pressure is fine, and so was my EKG, but next week, i have to have a treadmill stress test and an echocardiogram. i figured next week would be good in case they need a vein, as tomorrow is another date with my IVIG!

(i wonder if keith richards experiences this many medical interventions?)

i have to laugh at the concept of a treadmill being my stress inducer. ha! i seek out the elliptical stepper to relieve my stress. here’s my idea of a real stress test:

1) up intermittently all night with one child who is barfing.

2) wake (ha! ha!) in the morning knowing that something is due. a report? paperwork? oh. now i remember. a presentation in front of bigwigs. a presentation i dutifully and diligently completed but was going to put finishing touches on last night after the kids went to bed; only, too bad for me. a kid got sick.

3) the realization that your spouse and you will now play the game whose job is more important today!? let the shouting begin!

4) “winning” that competition, off to work you go, exhausted, with other child in tow. drop other child off at school. park car; take a bus and two metros to work.

5) give important presentation, realizing that important piece you didn’t get to was actually more than just windowdressing. oops.

6) call from other child’s school. child is barfing. please come pick up child. spouse cannot pick up child, as other child is currently reenacting the magic of krakatoa in full bloom.

7) take two metros and a bus to get to car. get to school. get to child. child blows chunks on your Jones New York suit. (hold in those tears. it’s not your turn.)

8) after your dry clean only apparel is destroyed when child helpfully wipes a wet paper towel over the spew, get kid into car. do happy dance when you locate a plastic target bag in the back. place target bag in front of child.

9) get home to find that spouse, too, is kissing the porcelain god. spouse sees you, mutters something of the whereabouts of barfy child #1, then runs upstairs to the bedroom and closes door. buh-bye. won’t be seeing him again until saturday.

10) there you are: sleepy, queasy, in heels and a formerly good suit, with two kids looking up at you for help. it’s 3:00 p.m. go.

now you can attach electrodes to me and see how well my heart fares. not that this has ever happened to me… well, not necessarily in this order. i suspect there are other, better scenarios out there. i can even recall the night when i had a child and a husband barfing and a child not breathing. i held a bucket under one and a nebulizer on the other. oh, if only i had the wherewithall to take pictures of this joyful wee-hours-of-the-morning family experience. but in the end, i had to leave the barfers to themselves and drive the non-breather to the hospital at 4 a.m. — behind a weaving, probably drunk driver. really. good. times.

in short: i don’t need no stinkin’ treadmill.

(doctors? you can thank me later for this test design.)

beautiful boy

Posted on May 30, 2008 by wrekehavoc

ever since the day you were born, you’ve been a child of wonder. you’re curious about insects and dinosaurs and how letters go together to make words. you pepper coach alex with 50,000 questions at each little olympian class. you take things apart; you destroy anything your sister hasn’t hidden. and every night, you ask the same question: what are we going to do in the morning?

you’re a brave, brave boy. yes, you whine and cry any time you are scheduled to go anywhere, whether it’s school or a class or to the supermarket. (you don’t whine when it’s target time because you think you’ll be getting a toy. guess again, little man.) you are completely apprehensive about these experiences. but once you’re in them, you flourish. you’re thrilled you went. you don’t provide the same color-commentary that your big sister does whenever she does anything (well, i take that back: she doesn’t describe her trips to the bathroom; you, on the other hand… well…), but you beam. i’m trying to help you remember that feeling: remember these feelings maybe will help you the next time you need to go and do something and you don’t want to go. these feelings will buoy you; and there are times in life that you really need a buoy.

i still remember the first time i heard you laugh. you were 2 months old, asleep on my shoulder one summer night, while your father and i watched some evening TV. i was still anxiously awaiting sounds from your mouth that moved beyond a cry or a burp; your sister was an early talker and i was hoping you might be, too. at a funny point in the show, you, sound asleep but completely on cue, started to laugh: your hearty, little man giggle that i now hear every single day. but that night, i heard a preview of the happy guy who was emerging. it took my breath away.

and i relish every single day with that happy boy. soon, you’ll start kindergarten, and our tuesdays will end. you’ll be sad, i know, but probably not as sad as i’ll be. but if you can be brave about it, i will be, too, deal?

i love you, beautiful boy. happy birthday, darling darling darling darling jools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_imwld_WzI&hl=en

the name game

Posted on May 28, 2008 by wrekehavoc

jools has a spiral notebook. he has impaled some of his artwork to fit inside it (his idea), nestled beside some sheets of notebook paper (my idea.) lately, we have been playing a game where he rattles off some letters, then asks: what does that spell, mama? since the words are usually consonant-heavy, they usually sound mostly like words from some eastern european language where vowels appear sparingly. they also often resemble those letters you need to copy when trying to post something but the site wants to make sure you are a person and not some automated spambot, like WTK4O.

last night before bed, we continued our game. it had been a long, exhausting day together, and i frankly wanted him to put the blasted notebook away so we could read and get to bed. but the dude is persistent, and he picked up his pencil. mama, he said, what does this spell? and he scrawled W T E L E.

nothing, honey, i replied. let’s close the notebook.

no, no! the dude was not compliant. typical for him, of course. so i took the pencil. i never write in the notebook, so this was a minor mommy revolt. i wrote the letters M O M. don’t know why; i guess i wanted consonants and vowels, living in perfect harmony. do you know what letter that is, i asked, pointing to the M?

he scrunched up his face. considering the only C i ever received in my elementary school career was in handwriting, this is not exactly a surprise. it’s an M, i hinted.

he smiled. M O M, he said. MOM.

how did you know that spells MOM, i asked, surprised.

i dunno, he replied. i just put them together.

i used to weep because BC’s first spoken word to me was Bye Bye!, which is what i said to her every morning before i went to work. and i don’t even remember jools’ first word; i think i wrote it down, but somehow, you begin to forget everything subsequent children do. it’s not fair; but it is what it is.

but only dementia will ever make me forget jools’ first word read.

writing

Posted on May 20, 2008 by wrekehavoc

as a writer, i am always sucked in tempted thrilled to find opportunities to challenge myself online, especially between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am (barring those nights when people under the age of 10 decide not to sleep due to illness or just plain cos.) for example, there was a time i wrote abstracts because describing articles in 100 words was more fun than delousing my daughter’s hair. (sadly, that opportunity — the abstract writing website — has gone belly-up, at least for now. the lice, mercifully, are still in louse heaven, living on a giant head.)

but now, i’ve discovered smith magazine, a place where you can be challenged to write about anything… in just six words. considering just how verbose i can be (note entire blog output since 2002) about a whole lot of nothing, well, this screamed try me!

so i did.

recently, i tried my hand at the MOMoirs section. you may have guessed that i have a little experience in the MOM department, having been one for nearly 10 years. and of course, i possess all the answers on being a MOM. for example:

Q: mommy, why can’t i see whether jools will eat this [fill in the blank with anything disgusting, inedible, or poisonous]? wouldn’t it be fun?

A: because mommy doesn’t want to make you personally pump jools’ stomach. you don’t know how to do it, as you have not watched that episode of Trauma: Life in the ER yet.

so when i noticed there was actually a contest on this, well, of course i was going to give it a go.

lucky me. i am a winner.

i had to summon all my powers to think of how i could describe this crazy roller-coaster ride called parenthood in six words. all the joy. all the heartache. all the leftovers. it was not easy to convey that in six measly, economic words. but, it suddenly came to me, as if summoned by a dream:

Can I pee in private, please?

anyway, i would love it if you folks would try your hand at this fun exercise in the comments section. i shouldn’t be the one having all the fun.

guilty pleasure monday: electric light orchestra

Posted on May 19, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i tell you what-what, doo doo doo hey what-what

don’t bring me down.

i just thought i’d let jools, who was two at the time he uttered those inimitable words, introduce today’s:

guilty pleasure monday.

yes, my clever son takes after his gram’s unspoken musical motto: if you don’t know the words, make ’em up. there was a time when the formerly-known-as-a-classic-rock-station-now -a-station-that-pretends-to-be-progressive-station seemed to play ELO’s don’t bring me down every hour. at least, it was on every single damn time i was driving with the boy in the car. and no matter your age: it can, and it will, take over your brain in a powerful way, much like my number one earworm for all time, bittersweet symphony.

(you can thank me later for that last link.)

and symphony is where it all started for this band from birmingham (england, not ‘bama.) at the dawn of the 1970s, jeff lynne (probably one of the biggest beatle worshippers of all time) formed a band with roy wood of big-in-Britain group the move. only, too bad for wood, as he wasn’t happy and left the band, leaving lynne to take over wood’s vision of immersing classical music into rock.

yes, it’s a long stretch to go from symphony to xanax xanadu, but there was a time when the music ELO put out was actually interesting, at least to youngish me (who was trying to figure out how my flute lessons fit in with my beloved rock.) (and no, don’t tell me jethro tull. most of tull leaves me yawning.) i was probably reeled in first by can’t get it out of my head, a beatlesque ballad that. has. strings. face the music is one album that, if you play it backwards, actually DOES have a message for the intrepid listener, and it’s not paul is dead. (i know. i used to do it when i was younger and had a working turntable.) roll over, eleanor rigby, and tell mccartney the news. do ya is simply a dashboard-thumping anthem.

and rockaria clinched it with such lines as:

she’s sweet on wagner.

i think she’d die for beethoven.

she likes the way puccini lays down a tune.

and verdi’s always creeping from her room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKK_XW74teM&hl=en

sure, they put out plenty of crap. but i give them a ton of credit for attempting to mix classical with rock. they tried to do something novel, at least novel for that period of time.

and anyway, how often can you say that classical music has a good beat and you can dance to it?

olé ELO.

the inner light

Posted on May 13, 2008 by wrekehavoc

there’s a strange yoga/martial arts session taking place in my house as i type. BC is teaching jools to stand with his hands together (though when i looked at him and said namaste, master BC told master jools not to say that.)

BC, fed up with jools’ (typical for a nearly-five year old boy’s) behavior, has decided to create a reward system. (never mind any of the disciplinary systems i’ve set up over the past two or three years.) SHE gets to decide whether he’s behaving. SHE gets to make the rules of this little world, including warnings and stickers. for my part, apparently, i get to contribute $1 to a fund for a reward for the dude if he does what he’s told. by HER.

oh dear.

i understand her frustration. raising a boy is infinitely different from raising a girl. where BC was an amazing listener and a child who behaved in a seemingly perfect way from a very young age, jools is an active little dude who doesn’t have a ton of patience for sitting and listening to anyone for a long period of time. he’s quick to whack her, punch to her judy, and make things physical fast.

but he’s also infinitely easier in other ways. the boy laughs when he gets shots, unlike the girl who needs to be physically restrained when anything needs to pierce her skin. the boy is incredibly merry and light hearted, unlike my tween girl, who is perched, cautiously looking over into the hormonal abyss.

she can’t grasp that he’s different from her. and i bet she’ll be a mystery to him as soon as he becomes more aware of her. but i’ve got both of their numbers. still, i let them explore each other’s personalities, their inner light. in between the never-ending fights, they have these crazy moments where they start to meet each other as people. its delightful as long as it lasts.

so i’ll let girlfriend set up this new “disciplinary” system, peaceable as she wants to make it. he seems willing at first blush, to submit, if only because he loves the time he has his sister’s undivided attention. forgive me if i’m a skeptic. it’s not like i haven’t tried this before. but as long as no yogis are harmed in the process, i’m cool.

they’ve laid out my exercise mat and she is instructing him to do some move that involves a soccer ball but which looks like some funky calisthenics. it won’t last. after all, he’s looking longingly at his bright green Star Wars light saber.

this is a stretch, but i’m guessing that darth vader probably doesn’t have a mantra.

remedy

Posted on May 8, 2008 by wrekehavoc

our house is stress central.

one child had to get two immunizations yesterday. a child who has a limited pain threshold. i won’t mention names, but it’s a girl child. a girl child who was star of the week one minute but then not necessarily star of the pediatrician’s office the next. her hand started hurting her, along with the shot sites. tylenol was not helping. my brother-the-doctor indicated that perhaps a nerve was hit, but not a biggie. still, not a pretty afternoon.

one spouse had to work. he had to work a lot. he had to work a lot again. he called at 4:45 pm to share that we needed to go downtown to pick up one other child at school. school ends at 6 p.m. this is the height of DC rush hour, coming AND going. am i happy yet?

no. not hardly.

downtown we drove in a rush, the unhappy and now-in-pain immunized person and i. we made it in record time. my parking pass was confiscated, as i need a new 2008 one. it is now may. but nice security people let me park anyway, as the worst security threat we pose is one girl reenacting the exorcist. (i’ll let you wonder which one. the answer is not as simple as it might seem.)

we make it to one hellboy’s school. a hellboy who apparently as of late has made a career of knocking around some of the toddlers in the morning. (just cause.) someone is acting out. someone who might be a pissed-off palooka. but knocking babies around like inflatable punching bags is unacceptable behavior around here.

fortunately, today was not a punching-other-children sort of day. it was merely a spending-time-holding-hands-with-my-main-girlfriend sort of day. yes. the boy is in love. and he’s in love with a girl named condoleezza.

not this one (though i suspect she may be named for her. but i don’t know for certain.) ah. only in DC.

but he listened. and he behaved.

am i happy yet?

not quite. but a little better.

we three rush home, rushing in a rush hour way. which means not exactly speeding down constitution avenue. it doesn’t help that the woman driving in front of me is driving like hunter s. thompson is her co-pilot. wouldn’t it be funny if we got home and daddy’s car was in the driveway? BC joked.

don’t push me, little girl.

of course, BS wasn’t home when we got home. and i had not even cooked dinner. when it’s after 6 and dinner isn’t even started, and people are climbing the walls in search of something edible, it is time to visit mr. freezer to see what magic he holds. lucky for me, there was a wegmans veggie lasagna languishing, ever since i bought it and BS said: ew. no one is going to eat THAT. tough times call for tough measures. (and i say that in this house, if you’re not home, you don’t get to pick dinner.) that sucker was going in the microwave.

miraculously, the kids loved it. we’re talking BC, aka miss picky-picky of the western world, asked for seconds. the only criticism i got about it was that there were carrots in it, according to jools. (i don’t have the heart to tell them that there was also spinach and mushrooms. jools loves them, but BC hates both of those.)

am i happy yet? getting closer.

i get kids bathed; i read some chapters of some inscrutable Bionicle book we found at the elementary school fair last weekend. i medicate a certain older child with the zillion different things she requires thanks to her magical lungs… and immunizations. in case i have forgotten, she is IN PAIN. she CAN’T MOVE HER ARMS.

do all moms have days like this?

i start hellboy into bed. it’s 8:00. BS comes home.

DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, so much for that mission accomplished. at this point, BS is speaking in monosyllabic grunts. he has had a long day. he has had a long, not-so-good day. he has had a long, not-so-good, and apparently hungry day. did you eat yet? i believe he grunted in the negative. enjoy the lasagna!

i get the boy into bed. i get the girl into bed. she’s in pain, so i get her something from the freezer to help at least one of her arms. in vain, of course.

BS says goodnight to the girl. BS says goodnight to the boy. after a few minutes of decomposing, as we call it in this house, BS announces he’s going to bed.

fabulous.

meanwhile, there’s one little girl who can’t sleep. in the morning, she’ll let me know that she was UP. ALL. NIGHT. but i waited, and i waited until she fell asleep before i went up to bed. so i know she was at least asleep for 30 seconds of the night.

on the bright side, little man went to sleep like a champ.

lately, i am so exhausted. i feel completely wrung out. tomorrow, i go for some more IVIG, and hopefully that will help me keep from getting sick. see, when i get wrung out, i get sick. no one around here gets that. moms are supposed to just keep going and going and going. but i have to just stop sometimes. if i don’t stop some times, i will stop. for good.

fortunately, this morning, i awoke and thought about a little boy in this house who likes to sing a certain song. how BS found out about this group, i don’t know. but jools is completely hooked on the hook of this song, called Nth Degree.

i found it on youtube. and everyone gathered around. even BS.

and suddenly, there was the remedy. it was just a few minutes, but we actually were all smiling. we were all happy.

even me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vhMhm9euT8&hl=en

and that dang bird is still trying to get into our house.