Kangaroos in the mist

Seattle was covered by a thick fog this morning. After dropping Frost at school Wren and I went for a walk to a coffee shop until zoo opening time. I am trying to train local barristas to sell me a kiddicino as they do in Australia (foamed milk in a tiny cup with a bit of chocolate on top but no coffee). They consider it a novelty and give them to me free. Wren enjoyed his while I had a real coffee. Here is Wren bringing snuggle-bunny through the mist to the coffee shop, Fresh Flours.

The mist was still heavy when we reached the zoo. Wren told me he wanted to see the grizzly bears (aka "panda bears" in his words) and the 'nakes. The Nakes only open at 10am so we passed by the Australian exhibit while heading to see the bears. The bears were pretty dull - practicing a bit of hibernation by the pond - but the kangaroos were out and about. The misty field reminded me of camping at Lammington National Park (O'Reillys) at Green Mountain outside Brisbane. I would love to take the kids there sometime. The parrots come down on your hands and in the misty mornings the wallaby graze right by the tents. Bower birds display their blue treasures in the undergrowth nearby and there are wonderful trails AND a coffee shop. Argh! I really need to get out of town even if I don't make it to Australia next weekend :)

The otters were also very active. Wren was concerned because the otters had a Christmas tree in their pool and were using it as a toy, swimming under and around. Wren hoped that the otters would go into their den which has a glass front. He likes to see them go "night night". Today the otters looked as if they had just woken up. Here is an otter diving past the Christmas Tree.


The only part of our Zoo visit which Wren did not enjoy was when the lion started roaring just out of sight. I think we were at the back of his pen but the roar was alarming loud for Wren who refused to get out of the stroller and kept asking to "go home" for a while. As the roars receded with distance he check with me "lion not get You?" "Lion gone far 'way?" I reassured him the lion could not get out and get him. It is funny how he calls himself You. I hadn't really noticed until today.

Josh looked after Wren tonight while I was doing a school cleaning for our Open House tomorrow. Unfortunately there was another 'poop in the bath' incident which was distressing for Josh and Wren. The good news is that Josh was not IN the bath at the time although I remain suspicious of the few toys that partook of the poopy puddle.

Post on the theme of change

Its a funny time of year around here. Its cold (but not SO cold) and dark (but not SO dark). You have the feeling you 'should' be doing more but its about all you can do to keep the house upright and the kids fed. I have found myself turning off the news some days. Wondering and worrying about things from the plants that died in the winter-superfreeze, to what I should do to reduce CO2 emissions, to how real are Wren's chances of growing up to a healthy adult with the world intact around him. It is a time of visible change in many areas of all our lives right now (we all know that life is always in change, right? Right? [hit self on head for emphasis] but at this point it feels as if its hard to see where things are going. Its not so much the 'butterfly effect' but a swarm of stampeding buffalo spinning things around upstream and down.

The Economic Crisis has affected us to the point that I am trying to avoid vicarious spending (even at Value Village) and am postponing my big dental work for a month to eek it out into a happier budget. I have delayed my bi-weekly visits to The Therapist which I much enjoyed (sanity is less valuable than groceries) and we are not going to replace the vacuum cleaner nicknamed Airforce One for its awesome power AND volume.

Re: Vaccuum - It works fine but has visitors covering their ears, cats running and kids screaming "wait, wait... I am going to another room" while it devours all in its path (including carpets and blinds) spitting power-drive cables in its wake. It will be a mark of an economic thaw when I finally cough up enough to buy a new one but for now Wren and I can manage to keep the house clean together with our matching His and Hers Hoover's.

The Den in the Basement
The kids have been enjoying the space in the basement after our midwinter cleaning and playdates are now a lot easier. They hang out down there and drink canned juice, throw darts, make Rokenbok trucks crash into each other and play various invented games involving projectiles and scoring with runes. Its like SPY meets ARMIES (even if spies=code and armies=playmobil dudes).

The only one upset by the new arrangement is Wren who routinely asks to "go down self?" to join in after school playdates. If he is allowed downstairs things deteriorate fast with games like "run away from Wren" or "make Wren throw darts at us" which undermine my faith in Frost's inate good sense. Nope. Not here. I suspect that when future generations do the mapping of the family DNA we will find a black sheep who lived naked, used projectile weapons and ran in a pack. Wait... that sounds familiar? Hoo hoo hoo!!

Wren update
I am often asked "how is Wren doing?" I wish I could do more with it. The answer remains twofold 1) How is his heart and 2) how is he day-to-day.

Wren's Heart Update
We don't know how Wren's heart is doing. We have a cardiology clinic visit on March 2nd and until then we don't know. We do know that while his surgery went well in terms of recovery it did not produce as great an improvement across the valve as we had hoped. Further, about 30% of sub-aortic resections require re-operation due to recurrent obstruction. Wren is at high risk for this blockage returning. We hope to give a good report in early March.

If things are stable we will (insha'Allah) make a trip to Australia that month. However right now I have a constant anxiety about Wren's heart. At times I want to cry, just wishing I could be the one with a wonky heart instead of him. I have always had a great endurance and it feels so ironic that I have prided myself of my own stamina when that is now so meaningless.

As he develops and shows his personality and intelligence I also fear future surgeries and the loss of any part of him to complications. I don't want him to be 'broken' at all and while his scar is healing beautifully it is still a reminder to me. "Owie all gone" says Wren but I know its not gone. Its just lurking.

Shone's Syndrome Musing
Its also difficult to handle the label "progressive" which is commonly used about Shones Syndrome. It means that the heart defects shown in kids with the syndrome are not static. You can't think of heart surgery like repairing a broken leg or cleft palate - the anatomy is not a bone which is stable when it is repaired. The heart continues to grow and the muscle responds to repairs and grows differently when the blood flows through the changed anatomy.

Sometimes repairs hold ("he is stable") but sometimes the body's growth and healing undo the benefit of the surgical change. This can up and change over time. We know Wren needs an aortic valve replacement at some time in the near or far future but we want to hold out as long as possible in hopes of making this his last AV surgery and of postponing blood thinners until he is less prone to daily bonks. We also know his mitral valve is abnormal and has regurg. What will this mean?

Only the future will tell and in the meantime it is a waiting game which is not fun to play.

Day to day wonderful
On the other hand - cheerful point 2) Wren looks and acts like every other toddler day to day. He is doing GREAT! We have not been hit by colds and coughs and flu (although Josh has a viral illness right now and is feeling lousy). Wren has plenty of energy and meets or exceeds all his developmental milestones. I was on the phone yesterday and the caller overheard me acknowledging Wren telling me "I squash a tiny tiny bug dead." It turns out he had squashed a dried husk of a winged-thing he found on the window-sill. He comment was "it is such a precious age." Well, sure. I smile often and I want to eat him up he is so cute but he would say "Shannon, do not eat me". (yes, the blight of "shannon vs mommy" has begun.)

Recently he:

• Has figured out that words make sounds and points to each one for me when we read books with big letters. He pretends to read books to me and loves the ones that have one word a page which he points to and says the word. Of course, he still has no idea of his colors and routinely mixes red and blue to the point that I think he is color blind (which I thought about Frost at this age too).


• He can jump and hop along like a kangaroo.


• He has been to his second dance class and loves it. He has figured out more of the moves and was much less anxious. He calls it "dance class" and talks about it sometimes.


• His speech continues to evolve faster than I can blog about it. Today we made up a game with the dinosaurs in which one is sleeping and he wakes it up by making a surprising noise which makes "dinosaur scared!" But we reassure him quickly. He is using longer sentences he cobbles together "its ok dinosaur, its just nee-nah noisy." [aka fire truck]


• Just to give you an idea of his vocabulary he knows these words and uses them regularly: diplodocus, harvester, excavator, t-rex, excellent, delicious, 'mote control, skeleton and scarey halloween.


• He has started to play make-believe. Yesterday he put on a fireman's helmet and took an old serial port cable from the computer garbage and started to squirt out fires around the house with great urgency. On the way home from school last night he was asking "what that noise?" because something in the car interior was squeaking. Frost said "its a mouse, Wren". "Mouse?" asked Wren "Want see it?" I said that Frost was being silly and there was no mouse to which Frost embellished "No, the car is a huge mouse squeaking." "Car is 'uge mouse?" asked Wren. He was excited by this joke. I said "no, silly... we are playing pretend." Wren said "not real" but the idea appealed to him and he muttered "car 'uge mouse" a few times as we drove in the dark.

I was going to do a Frost update too but this is way too long for writing or reading. I shall do a Frost post in a day or two.

Signing off with some neurosis about the future of earth, heart kids and the economy [I am having 'head to the woods with a solar panel' fantasies but there are no cardiologists out there. Crap.]

Biking, 1st Haircut and Little Gym Decision

I have been looking for a 'class' for Wren to attend. I would like something that is short and only once a week. Music, art or big jumping activities would be ideal. Yesterday I took Wren to try out a class at the Little Gym near our house. It was not a typical class because it was the end of a session and the children were "showing off" their skills. Wren liked the room, he jumped and balanced his way around it but I have decided not to join the class. The problem is that it is a lot like pre-gymnastics - not just gym in general. They do balance beam and forward rolls and hanging bars and swinging on parallel bars and even rolling around a bar. Since Wren is only just released from 'sternal precautions' I feel that all this gym might be a bit much.

Still, its hard. I wonder whether this is the beginning of a sloap (aka a soapy slope) on which I restrict Wren's activity due to his heart condition or surgery. I hope not. I would like to hear from other parents whose kids have had OHS but don't have explicit restrictions on activity. Do you find yourselves stopping them playing some games or sports or just let them try? I am not cautious at home. Just seeing that room of balancing, swinging, rolling, jumping and bouncing toddlers I felt protective of Wren. Plus there were 3 kids coughing disturbingly!

We are going to try out the Nurturing Pathways toddler class to see if that is a better fit.

First Haircut
Wren and Frost both received a haircut this week. Wren did not enjoy his haircut despite being able to sit on a wooden whale, watch TV and have his brother and mother sing to him. The salon gave him a certificate which said he has "bravely received his first haircut" but it was a generous assessment. Here is Wren having the snip .


The hairdresser did not do much beside make a straight bowl cut and even then Wren barely made it. I doubt you would notice that he had a haircut.

Biking to Greenlake
On the weekend Frost suggested we go for a bike ride. Lauren lent us a bike so both Josh and I could go and we put Wren on the back. It was cold but lovely and bright and we made it to Greenlake (via Cohen Park) for a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie.


Here is Wren hiding in the shrubbery next to the coffee shop. He gave me a real fright by vanishing into the hedge. I thought he might have run through into the neighboring yard! He is very unusual when he plays hide and seek because he can wait very still and silent for a long time waiting to be found.
Frost was so taken by the sunshine that he asked whether he could get all wet in Greenlake. I said "no". He nagged and I conceded that he could wade and experience the "natural consequences". Of course he wanted to know what that meant and when I explained it meant that he would learn why I thought that wading in icy water was a bad idea by experiencing the consequences - he was determined to prove me wrong.

Here is Frost in Greenlake telling me that there are no natural consequences and he is having fun. Josh is benignly unconvinced.

Early morning birdwatching

We had lovely clear weather this past weekend and managed to get out with the kids to make some vitamin D. On Sunday morning Wren and I went birdwatching at Union Bay Marsh. The area and shores of Lake Washington are home to many overwintering birds.

It was very cold and the rivulets of water crossing the path were frozen over. Wren enjoyed stamping on the ice and trying to crack it. Little ponds were also frozen and pebbles skittled across the surface in a musical way but if a large rock was thrown it cracked the ice and felt through, trapping big white air pockets under the dark surface.


In this picture Wren is listening to the call of the Red Winged Blackbirds. There were many of them on the bare shrubs and trees, calling to each other in sequence. Wren learned to identify the song and I ahve a little movie clip I should put up showing him listening and identifying the bird. He particularly enjoyed looking at the picture in the bird book and saying "that is him!" (to everything from Sandpiper to eagle.


While walking around the trail we ran into Marth (Lincoln's Gran) and may be able to do the Little Gym class at the same time as they. I hope it works out. Martha walked around with us and has also been thinking of bringing Lincoln to the park and has bought the same little bird book of Seattle Birds to learn the local critters. The Union Bay area is very popular with birdwatchers - we saw about 10 other people with binoculars and/or very large lenses on their SLR cameras. My little Nikon was an anomaly (but my subject was closer - in the scenic shot there is actually a red-winged blackbird in the far tree but it appears only as a dot).

When we came to the banks of Lake Washington we noticed some bird photographers pointing out a pair of bald eagles who were attacking a coot out on the lake. We hurried over and watched the pair of eagles dive-bomb the little coot who ducked and dove bravely while swimming for shore. There was a flock of several hundred coot in a protected inlet but this little coot had wandered from the protection of the flock.

After about 8 passes at the coot (at times the photographer thought the coot was a goner) the eagles gave up and flew off to a perch in some lakeside willows across the inlet. The coot swam hurriedly to the flock which was feeding near a great blue heron standing basking on a log near the shore.

It was very exciting. Later in the day we went to the Pacific Science Center and saw the train show which was on over the weekend.

ART

Wren loves making art. He draws with an intensity and stamina which is a bit addictive. In the morning he won't eat breakfast unless he is drawing and Heather told me he stuffed his lunch is his mouth as quickly as he could when she said he could only draw "after lunch".

At bedtime he sat on the floor and wanted to draw on paper on top of the books I wanted to read. When I left him alone for a short while he drew all over the door. I shall try and scan a few of his pictures tomorrow. They are mostly long spindly line drawing of 'dinosaurs' and 'keletons' and 'scary halloweens' plus some 'untents' [elephants] and robots. Occasionally, he asks me to draw on the same page he is using and invariably puts on a sad voice and says "not draw on WREN'S ONE". Apparently I fail to see where his drawing is located.

Here is Wren painting at home. He is wearing an old apron of Frosts that I have had hanging around for ages. He only started wearing this since our visit to the Children's Museum on Friday.


Wren loved the glass frame painting and squeegeeing at the Children's Museum art room. He stood there for a long time painting and removing paint then repeating the process again. We shall go to the Children's Museum again just to use the glass painting area.

Wren also liked the easels. We do not have an easel at home but I should get one this summer.


Finally, Yesterday we made some cookies and squeezed chocolate chips into the lemon snickerdoodle cookie dough because they were not wicked enough without them. Today was SUNNY and we did some gardening. I walked to U-village and Frost went on a sleepover to Isaacs. I did not realize how much I missed the sun until I saw it again.

Dizzy Lizzy / Lazy Daizy

My mother is back from vacation and I shall have to resume my daily postings on the grandchildren. Mum has this super cheap "phone card" which is great but for the haunted house echo which has us speaking on top of each other or fading in and out from time to time. I need to write so she knows what I am talking about. Actually, I don't have time to post much now other than to say that all of us are well and have been enjoying some rare sunshine and walks.

This afternoon at 4.30pm Frost said "God, what time is it? Its so light?" When I told him the time he was stunned. "But its not dark?" he said. I explained that it had been weeks since we had much sun and he wasn't used to it staying light a bit longer. Wren looked out the window and said "go outside" which he did.

Seattle Children's Museum
This morning I took Wren to the Children's Museum. It was his first visit and he enjoyed the Imagination Art Studio and the car you can drive best. I have some lovely pictures of him painting. He also made a collage on an old LP. Strangely, the material that the children were given to cut collage from was National Geographic Magazines from the 1950s and 60s. One, from 1953 had an article about a trip down through Africa and included a story and pictures on Cape Town and Durban. I cut out some pictures from Muizenberg Beach in 1953 and stuck them on Wren's LP. I also tore out some sections to take home. There was another fascinating article in the 1966 edition. Apparently in March 1966 (shortly before I was born) Scientists in Seattle captured an Orca and kept it 'sea caged' at the wharf for tourists to watch. Bizarre. I am thinking of sending the article (which I stole from the toddlers snippety snip) to the Seattle Times (since the PI is closing) to do a follow-up story. Orcas are always in the local news!

Support Group for Shones Syndrome
I have started a google group for families with children who have Shones Syndrome. I have been learning a lot from email contact with a few of them and hope that others will join and inspire and inform with their experiences. Here is the group link. We have no posts yet but a few members.

http://groups.google.com/group/shones-support

Brothers

Wren has been particularly sweet on Frost recently. Everything Frost does or has Wren wants to do or have. This makes it hard for Frost to do some of his own things and has reduced the time Wren spends in age-appropriate (normal toddler) games. When Frost had a playdate with Alex recently, Wren came running in distress to tell me "Mummy mummy HELP HELP Wren don't have a gun!" and he loves to "play with guys" which are playmobil figures and transformers.

He notices that Frost does not sit in a booster seat at table and has taken to sitting in the chair next to Frost whenever he can. He also likes to read near Frost and watch him playing Lego Batman on thee Wii. I know this is inappropriate but he jumps up and down and shouts "BatMAN!!!" Here are the boys eating breakfast together.

And here they are in a big cardboard box. Wren used this box as an airplane. All the animals are passengers but after Frost climbed in too it was very squashed.



Frost, the reading addict
You may have noticed in the previous pictures that Frost has his nose in a book. This is not a co-incidence. Frost has his nose in a book almost all the time he is not having his screentime. He has become a reading addict and I have had to ban books at dinner and take away some books because he cannot hear me, get ready for school or do his chores while a book is near. Tonight he read his book [Warriors - Into the Wild] in the bath for half and hour then begged to be allowed to stay up a bit longer to read at bedtime and I caught him sneaking his light on to read some more.

Running and Jumping are EXCELLENT
Meanwhile, Wren is working at prefecting the run and leap. He is able to run and JUMP and land two legged like a frog. He loves to do this and to take a series of hops across the room. Sometimes I jump too and he finds this very exciting. His word of the day was "excellent" - he kept saying things were "excellent." He thinks that the iPod recordings of the Wiggles are pretty great too. I have made a Wren's Favorites Playlist which is available on the dock in the kitchen and we often dance or at least watch the iPod while it plays. His favorite tracks include "Chugga chugga big red car" and "Old Dan Tucker". We also dance to the knickerbocker song. Tomorrow, I will surprise him with a new download from iTunes - "Cold Spaghetti.

The Sad Saga of the Duck-Godzilla Umbrella

We've been having a bit of rain recently but since its been pretty mild I have been taking Frost and Wren out walking. He loves using his duck umbrella. Its made by a company called Pylones and had a duck head and a duck foot handle and has purpled feathers inside the plastic canopy.


Unfortunately, when I shut the door of the minivan one night the duck umbrella was in the door and it broke with a mighty crunch. The damage was cosmetic but as you can see from the picture below, it was quite tragic. I felt very bad to have broken it but Wren said "its okay, Mummy okay? need GLUE" and we tried to get over it. For a few days duck-head lived a life apart from the umbrella - while Frost kept suggesting I glue it. To my mind this was clearly impossible.
To make the best of a bad situation, I suggested we put a dinosaur head on the umbrella to fix it. Wren is very happy with the godzilla head Josh attached this evening.


Skateboarding
Today, we walked to Top Pot for donuts and Frost brought his skateboard with him. On the first slight incline he rolled down without falling off. He was very tentative and wanted lots of reassurance about how well he was doing. After a few rolls he learned how to steer the board and went down some steeper hills. He was very pleased and after the donuts he hopped on his board with great confidence. He even learned to steer to avoid holes in the sidewalk. After each descent Wren ran down the hill towards Frost to "bring him back".

New Flu resistant to Tamiflu

This sort of stuff didn't use to bother me. Is it growing old or having children that makes me anxious at this type of news?

Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.

“It’s quite shocking,” said Dr. Kent A. Sepkowitz, director of infection control at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “We’ve never lost an antimicrobial this fast. It blew me away.”

The single mutation that creates Tamiflu resistance appears to be spontaneous, and not a reaction to overuse of the drug. It may have occurred in Asia, and it was widespread in Europe last year.

Wren had the shot(s)

Nurse Penny came to our house yesterday and gave Wren his Synagis shots. He weighs 27lbs 9oz which means he needs 1.8ml which is two shots. After reading Jeanette's (Grace's Mom from our support group's) articles on pain management I am asking our pediatrician for a prescription for the topical pain reliever to minimize discomfit during the shots. They are particularly large ones.

The Synagis protocol takes about 30 minutes. They have to weigh the child, check vitals, draw the vials, administer and then wait 15 minutes in case of a very very rare anaphylactic reaction. Wren had no reaction other than to check it was "all done!" Then he was happy. Last night he gave his bandaid to dinosaur at bathtime. New Dinosaur is Very Long Dinosaur and since the bandaid had a little blood on it from the shot "new dinosaur has owie on neck. Has BLOOD!!!!" The "has BLOOOOOD" was repeated a few times until he was "all better".

Do it like a crane
Wren really impressed me this morning. Not only did he sleep through the night for the first time ever... (8pm till 6.15am) but he helped himself to a drink from a sports bottle by his bed. When I went in in the morning he told me "I get it [the water] like a crane" and demonstrated with his arm how he reached over the rails to get it. I shall have to leave it there in future and hope he doesn't splash it around the crib. He always makes sure snuggle-bunny gets a drink when he does.

Mommy is in Therapy
I went to see 'my' therapist this morning. She is a buddhist 'psychotherapist' so we focus on ways of being and identifying what is arising. I haven't been to see her for over a year and it was nice to pick up again. My hope in going to see her is that I can figure out how to get from being a full-time mommy to having some of my own needs met by working part-time. My homework for the next few weeks is to do "open-ended" research into local non-profits with an international focus which is where I would like to work next. She helped me identify lots of reasons why I find it hard to start AND some ways to overcome them by making this into a research project [=happy and exciting] rather than a test of self-promotion [=bad and tiring].

Playgroup for Wren
I am very excited to have some offers of playmates for Wren. I am going to see if we can work out a time to play with some friends from our heart support group and perhaps a couple of toddlers we knew from our old playgroup. Wren is not going to know what to do with children under 4 years old!