Relationship Economics for 6 Year Olds

This morning at breakfast Frost announced he needed to invite X to his party too. Now X is not someone with whom he is friends. They have never had a playdate. I wondered why?

"Because he always gives money for birthday presents. He gave D $20 and I need $45 to give Alex."

Uh oh, I think, but I act nochalant so I don't scare off this candour.

"Why do you need to give Alex $45?"

"To join his club"

"What's the club called?"

"Well, actually, its TEN CLUBS. First, he said I had to pay him $10 to join his club. Then he said it would be $20 for a few clubs. Then he said $45 for 10 clubs."

"What do you do in the clubs?"

"I dunno. Like, have fun. Do spy stuff. Parker is in the club. Alex said Parker gave him $50 to be in the club. Maybe Rowan is in the clubs too."

"Oh, I see. Can't you be in the club free? Most kids make clubs free?"

"No, Alex says I have to pay him that money so I need money for my birthday?"

"So, if I give you $50 you'll give it to Alex?" [I am still incredulous at my child's credulity]

[Frost senses a trap]

"Well, maybe not."

"Why don't you start a club yourself with Elias?"

"YES! Then I can charge Alex $50 to join!"

"Or, you can make your club free but tell him that you should be in his club free too."

"Yeah... maybe" [Frost is not convinced Alex will buy this deal.]

I leave it there. One day I shall have to explain the term entrepreneur. Meanwhile, I am wondering how to set up a trust fund to prevent Frost giving Alex all his savings when he turns 18.

Remlinger Farm

Yesterday we visited Remlinger Farm and enjoyed the "Country Fair Family Park" which is open through September 21st this year. Wren loved "ride neigh" and "ride boat" and "ride train" as well as feeding sheep, goats and watching hungry bunnies.

Frost was very excited about it too and did all these activities with Wren.





It was hot and Wren was sweaty, more sweaty than other kids or Frost or me. I noticed he was sweaty after running a lot at baby soccer while none of the other kids broke a sweat. It just makes me feel more worried about him, that, and the news via the blog of another Shone's toddler that the surgery she had last year for sub-aortic stenosis is showing a recurrence of the obstruction. Apparently, her LV pressures are climbing and surgery is once again an option, possibly after the next checkup.

I need the facts but I also need the fuzzy hope that this will be the last surgery Wren needs and all memory of it will blur into the mists of time, happy times. Here are some happy times yesterday:

Frustration

These days Wren is prolifically verbal. I can't keep up with his list of words because he can copy virtually every word even though he may not recall the word to use it for a couple of days. Yesterday and today he surprised me with these phrases:

"MY burger!" (as we approached the window at Dicks to order burgers. Of course, he received his own burger to help with his mild anemia. and ate half of it.)

"Cold warm coat!" (on opening the back door at 6am and finding it very cold. I returned with a coat and he seemed almost surprised at his success, repeating "coat, warm" a few times as I put it on.)

"Taste toast!" (when I served Frost toast for breakfast but not Wren.)

Along with his newfound conversational imperatives has come an intense frustration. Half the day Wren is hooting a fierce, loud noise which means he is very frustrated and wants the toy, the brother, the mother or the world to behave differently - as he wants.

[Right now, Wren cries "bonk head" because he has bonked on the table leg as he attempts to climb up me. The moment I do something other than him he comes and demands "more muk" and goes to sit on the couch to wait for me with loud shouting and forced cries.]

Here is a picture of Wren captured in a frustrated hoot as the Duplo blocks fail to connect as he intended.



Yesterday, other moments of complaint included when the pile of river rocks he was making toppled over, when the bugs wouldn't fit in the box, when the animal cards fell out of the tub, when Frost wouldn't let him play with his toys... etc.

The Holiday Weekend

I bet this is not something a parent often says but "I didn't buy enough fireworks." Frost was exuberantly excited about them and managed to wait until 4pm. However, the fireworks I had allowed him did not last as long as his passion. Here he is leaping with energy while watching a blue smoke bomb. Before Josh started to light them, Frost lined them up along the deck in order of appearance. Thankfully, it will be dark earlier for new year's eve and my largesses will be better appreciated.



The other big theme of the weekend was SNAILS. A couple of weeks ago I planted a second batch of beans and some squash starts. Our first batch of beans which Joshua grew from seed were all decimated by snails from a few days after germination until they grew 5" tall. Only 2 survived. This time, I decided to barricade them with inverted soda bottles which I topped and tailed and gave a crenelated border to discourage snailvaders.

The method lasted about a week before the first silver trail and missing leaves announced the offensive. One sunflower and one bean were eaten bare (and the sunflower, beheaded 2" from the ground, before I decided to start stomping on snails. Wren noticed my obsession with snails and enjoys our morning snail hunts. Here are a couple of pictures of Wren on the driveway and pointing out a snail on the wall, which is where they congregate in the hundreds after a rain.



On Sunday, Wren came outside in barefeet and started stomping on snails. Clearly, this was a problem. Plus, as Joshua pointed out, I would have to squash hundreds and hundreds to save a few plants. My first Plan B was to capture lots of snails. Here are the prisoners getting rowdy. Frost was very agitated by the capture and Wren was thrilled. He found he could pick up snails and put them against things and they stuck. He said "on" and then pulled them "off" and put them "in" the cup again. Needless to say, many escaped and the rest of them went into a hardy shrub by the curb. Lauren said she puts them in the yard waste but I couldn't bring myself to do that either.



Our final plan is Sluggo. This stuff is sold for "organic gardening" but I don't think its really in the spirit of organics. It is some naturally occuring iron compound which is delicious to snails but makes them stop eating and starve to death. Frost overheard Josh reading that "the dead snails may not be visible because they may move away into a hidden area to die". Josh and I exclaimed that this sounded awful and Frost is very upset about it. But after another bean plant was eaten to death overnight I have no mercy left. We are now sluggoed and the rate of eating has not stopped, but was much diminished last night.

Wren's Health Update
Wren's fever subsided on Saturday and aside from some unexplained sad wakings at night, he seems back to his usual state of health. He is waking at 5am thesedays but I am doing OK thanks to my naturopath prescribed licorice potion.

I spoke with his doctor today and she mentioned that Wren's platelets are not as low as I thought Thursday. They are actually at 185 (base of low range is 150). Still, I have been giving him broccoli potato soup and oatmeal and am planning on some lamb tonight to help get his iron and vitamin K up.

He is also going to start on a mild iron supplement.

Yesterday I went to our monthly Heart to Heart Support group held at Childrens' Hospital. Usually, the meeting is reassuring but this time I came away with concerns about inexperienced interns (apparently it is inadvisable to be in a teaching hospital in July because the new crop of graduates comes on June 25th lacking experience). Also, problems with weekend staffing and intensivist shortages.

As if the mere procedure isn't enough. Argh.

Today we are going on a school playdate to a local wading pool playground.

Nightmares and neurotic dogs. Happy 4th of JULY!

Its the Fourth of July, the national holiday that appears each year as a cheery frenzy of red, white and blue and explosives. In Seattle, the tradition is to BBQ something under light showers of rain and afterwards gather in the glooming dark rainstorm to watch a well-regulated firework display set off on a barge on one of the city lakes. Personal fireworks are illegal which does not stop people from enjoying them on a small scale which lead to this belly-holding paragraph in the local paper. Friends on other continents, you will surely sense the absurdity here:

Thunderstorms Wednesday night also had an unexpected effect on pet owners' Fourth of July preparations, said Khadijih Harding, a veterinary assistant at Seattle Veterinary Associates' Ravenna-neighborhood hospital.

Many pet owners who had bought sedatives and anti-anxiety drugs for the cats and dogs before the Fourth exhausted their supplies during the night's erratic weather.

"We had prescribed medication for people weeks in advance, and they ended up using most of it because of the thunder," she said Thursday.

Apparently this is a well documented issue for American dogs who not only obtain prescription mood regulators but in Seattle can also enjoy dog naturopaths, dog accupuncture and dog massage.

Speaking of medical issues, Wren still had a fever this morning but it is lower, around 100, and he seems energetic but a little sombre. He is now napping.

For the past few nights I have been plagued by nightmares and last night was no exception. I dreamt that there was a huge downpour and the street filled up the water. One of the manhole covers lifted up and water poured out of the sewer. There had been a car crash on the street moments before so there was a debris field as well as the flood.

I watched out the window while neighborhood children came out of their house across the road [a house which in reality has no kids] to play by vortex of water.

Predictably [told you this was a nightmare] the toddler fell into the manhole and was sucked down after an awful almost-rescue swirling around in there. Then he was washed back out and his big brother who was about 5 tried to save him but fell in too!

Finally, both were rescued.

By this time I was outside and moved the children away from danger and went into the house and shouted at their mother. I can still remember fragments of the tirade but it was mainly stuff like "what are you thinking???" and it felt very liberating to castigate her for not looking after the kids. I was the Good Mother and Protector of Babies.

The previous night I dreamt that I took WrenFrost swimming in the Ganges in India and he drowned. I was carrying him out of the water [supposedly dead] when I realised he was breathing and injured by being in the water. So then Joshua and I had to decide whether to have him undergo surgery at a hospital in India or to risk flying him to a hospital near home [in the US].

I am sure you can see the themes here but it is still interesting to see my mind processing them. The dreams aren't frightening as such, just disturbing.

Frost had a hard time getting to sleep last night. He woke from light sleep crying and yelling and told me that he wanted a "private conversation". Joshua left us alone and he confided that he often had nightmares but they were not normally as scary. However, when I asked him what the nightmare was about he said "I don't want to talk about it". He repeated this with increasing vigor and my probing produced no results although I learned his nightmare was about "people". I tried to prompt more details but he said that he didn't want to have a "question and answer" conversation either.

I was a bit frustrated. I mean, isn't the conventional wisdom of nightmares that the fears are real until shared? How am I supposed to help diffuse the terror if he won't even talk about it? He doesn't write a blog. Argh. Why won't he talk about it? He's my son, right?

Blood draw results later

The pediatrician took a blood sample for CBC. This would identify bacteria in his blood which can indicate endocarditis. The blood draw was traumatic and Wren developed petechia in his arm and under his eyes from the pressure of the tourniquet and screaming. She said we needed to be a big aggressive in treating Wren and because it is a holiday weekend we may have to go to Children's if we did not do a draw today.

We should hear back by later in the day.

I since read that petechia are a symptom of endocarditis but I think in Wren's case it was due to the blood draw.

Update:
Wren's white cell count was normal! That means no endocarditis and this fever is probably viral. However, his hematocrit was a bit low (32) as were his platelets (153). She suggested we start Wren on iron to give him higher iron stores before his next procedure.

Fever and wren is caught by a homonym

Wren has had a fever since yesterday and I will be taking him to the doctor in the late afternoon. Since his fever is not high they were not going to see him until tomorrow but its a holiday weekend (isn't it always when they get sick?)we are going in today.

There is always a concern about endocarditis until a symptom emerges to explain the fever. It is not too high (101.6 last night and 101 again by 9.30am) and its probably a virus but I feel OK about letting the pediatrician do the worrying about the important things.

Now, the funny stuff.

The Bread Making Fiasco

This morning it was time to make bread. Wren loves when I make bread - he stands on his stool and helps by pouring ingredients into the bread machine. While the dough spins around he stands on tippy toes to watch it. After he had stood like that for 10 minutes I decided to move the bread machine to the floor and he sat mesmerized as the KNEAD cycle progressed.


Wren watching the dough go around.

After a while I ducked over to my laptop to check my email. This is what any parent of toddler does the moment their child is engaged in an activity that does not require their attention. I could see him from the desk so I felt fine about it. Eventually, Wren tired of watching and came through to see what I was doing. The dough had quieted down and was rising so I suggested we have one last peek at it and then it was naptime. The next picture shows what I saw when I opened the bread machine.

This is what we saw.

I shrieked and scooped the dough out. There were veins of bright purple and orange running right through it, not just on the surface, so there was no way to save it. My reaction saddened Wren and he was very sad when I told him the dough was no good and we had to throw it in the yard waste with the "yuck yuck". He cried and said "dough? dough?" as if to figure out what had happened.


"Dough, dough?" "Dough yuk yuk"

Of course it was not his fault that Wren had been confused by a homonym. Before we started making dough he had been playing with playdough which we also call "dough". He has seen me add flour and water to the breadmachine to get the dough the right consistency and while I was inattentive he had been innovating a tiny bit.

I did not have enough yeast to make another batch so I told Wren we would make a small bread. The small bread was fun to watch also and although nap was delayed a while the Maple Oat Sampler loaf is rising on the stovetop as I type.

Wren is napping, dreaming (no doubt) about multicolored doughs which invite retribution.

Bite me!

It was very hot on Sunday and the boys spent a lot of time outside playing with the hose. One game was for Frost to climb the tree and Wren to try and squirt him with water while he was up there. Josh came out and let Wren climb the tree.

While I was filming Frost went up to Wren and said "bite me" and stuck his finger into Wren's mouth. As Frost explained later "he never used to bite that hard!" Here is the hilariously painful movie of Frost being bitten by Wren (at his own request). In the second movie Wren is down from the tree and goes to find Frost who has run off crying due to the lack of sympathy from Josh. In the first movie Josh is heard to say "you asked him to bite you." Frost was not expecting the natural consequences. Wren is very sweetly seeking Frost calling out "ROST, ROST" as is his way.

Bath Tigers

Here are the boys bathing together and biting bath tiger. I thought it was such a cute photo that I couldn't resist giving it its own post.

BackYard Tourism #1: Rose Hill Woodland Park

This afternoon I took the boys to the East side [of Lake Washington] to try out a new playground in Kirkland called North Rose Hill. Frost, Alex and Wren had a great time in both play areas and on the walk across the middle of the park, through winding trails and wetland. Here is the new part of the park, opened a couple of years ago.



In the first playground the bigger boys had me set up obstacle races for them. Alex counted loudly while Frost raced and announced how many seconds he took. Frost responded with hostility to the anxiety this produced and kept arguing about the times Alex made up. He did not count for Alex but kept trying to negotiate on the 'scores'. I had no part in this argument because I was help Wren to play on the firetruck/aka digger he liked to climb all over.



Wren loved Kirkland because there are so many construction sites. He saw some of the biggest diggers ever doing road work and leveling large construction sites. Every corner has a mail truck parked alongside green lawns and even the houses seem more 'storybook' archetypal than those in Seattle. At one point I wondered whether Wren found more to look and shout about because the physical environment of the East side is like life in flashcards: things are spaced out with borders, created from the catalog imagination and very repetitious. OK Eastsiders you can heap it on me now.

Other things I noticed was that nowhere else have I seen kids with as much bling in their Crocs. In some shoes there was not a hole free! One little girl let me count her charms and she had 16! I am buying some for Frost for his birthday and he will thoroughly cherish the 4 he is getting.

Other than my moments of critical observation we had a fabulous visit. The parkland is lovely and the bigger boys loved running ahead and having Wren chase them. They also helped him find salmonberries in the wetland, or rather he found the salmonberries and ate them and they picked them for him. There was a great abundance of salmonberries and they seemed very sweet to me. Wren likes them more than raspberries and it confirms my intention to take them berry picking the week after next (next week Frost will be in camp). If your kid would like to come berry picking with us, let me know. Here is a picture of Wren pointing to the salmonberries he wants Alex and Frost to pick for him.


During the day I couldn't help but think about Wren's heart condition and whether he had any trouble with exercise, tiredness, rapid breathing and all those awful details I was asked at cardiology clinic. Just to reassure myself of his energy levels I have this movie of Wren running.



Here are some photos of him too. In the one he is running towards me being naughty. I can't remember what his game was but he has a rascally expression on his face. In the other picture he has a toy snake in his mouth. He found this in the grass walking to the playground and we were sad when he dropped it. When it was found on the way back he realized we were upset when he dropped it and made a big play of holding it and dropping it then running away. No matter how closely the boys "spied" on Wren they seldom noticed the moment he dropped it and I would not let them take it away to save it. So, here Wren enjoys teasing the boys by holding the snake in his mouth.





FACTS:
It was developed in 2006 and is called North Rose Hill Woodland Park.
Address: 9930 124th Avenue NE
It is 20 acres.