Are those Zebra Eggs?

Wren, Frost and I went to the zoo this morning. It was the Speed Dating equivalent of a normal visit. How to see the most animal in 30 minutes. Our goal was Giraffe so we raced around the africa savannah seeing hippo, oryx, zebra, ostrich and finally... GIRAFFE.

Wren noticed a clutch of [ostrich] eggs in the savannah and was excited. "Are those Zebra Eggs?" he asked?

"Do zebra's lay eggs?" I asked.

"No?" he answered, carefully.

"Who lays eggs..."

"BIRDS!" he said... "I don't knowwa? Do they?"

As we passed the hippos I realized that some adults are not much better than Wren in imagining Zebra eggs. A woman walking with her daughter (age 5ish) said "Look at the rhino statue, Macy."

The Rhino is pictured in this mud wallow below.

"Is it a rhino?" asked 'Macy'.

"Sure is. Look, it has armor on it."

"But it looks like a hippo."

"No, its a rhino."

"But it doesn't have a horn?"

"Some of them don't."

The boys riding the Rhippo

After sorting that out we moved on and Frost saw a bag of jelly beans spilled on the ground.

"Can we eat them?" he asked.

"Can we eat them?" Wren echoed, hopefully?

"Sure," I said. "You can eat one. They probably have zoo-poo compost on them but if you only eat 1 you'll be okay."

"Yuck! Zoo poo?" grimaced Frost, unsure whether I was serious.

"It will be fine, with one." I confirmed.

Wren dusted one off and ate it so Frost did too.

"Would another be OK too?" asked Frost, looking at the fallen bounty.

"I think you should just have one."

I had one too. I think that jelly beans, having hard shells, are less likely to absorb bacteria and stuff from the ground so I wasn't too concerned despite the stares.

Jelly Belly bonanza!

"Shannon, Come, come and SEE what we found!"

A bit later we played with Dylan and Laurie and ate food that had not be on the floor near animals. Dylan impressed Frost by his April 1st PRANKS (disconnecting the toilet chain in the cistern so it would not flush, taping the toilet seat down). On the way home Frost asked me how you stopped a toilet flushing, exactly. Not being very mechanically minded this was a challenge for Frost.

I told him he was not to mess with our new toilet in our new bathroom or he would have a new sense of my role as Mother [of the bathroom]. Of course, my hostility was masking a secret fear that he will open our new low-flow, dual flush toilet and take it apart, somehow. Nobody, not even our plumber, knows how the Europeans make their toilets and I am hoping to wait at least a decade to find out.

Later, when I was on the phone to Yet Another Roofing Company, he called me to his bedroom urgently. I know its urgent when he calls "Mommy, mommy" instead of a rather droll, "Shannon".

I opened the door to his room and a raw egg fell from the sky and broke on the carpet.

The Wicked Snow Queen cast him in her icy glare and swept from the room, her ermine furs hissing on the dirty carpet.

He was very quiet for a long time and then came out cautiously and asked "are you cross with me?"

"That was a REAL EGG from our OWN CHICKENS." I said. "You should apologize to them."

OK, that was not really a quotable moment from my parenting bible but its all I could think of. He should drop eggs on Joshua. He is the one in the family with a sense of humor.

Good news from the awfuldentist today - only a few more months of braces!!!! He said "a couple" so I told Frost "by summer, no braces" to manage his expectations.

What goes up

This morning we scooted to visit Leo, Anna and Ari. The sky was a cornflower blue [#6495ED] above us but to the north and south huge mounds of grey black clouds massed and churned. I was riding the scooter we snagged at the Lakeside Rummage sale last weekend. Unlike the old one, I am able to stand upright while scooting (the old one was found in a dumpster near our campsite at Cape Disappointment last summer and is held together with duct tape) and as a result I have fewer collisions and dead stops when I encounter surprising ridges and cracks in the sidewalk.

This is refreshing.

In my newfound confidence I have learned to do TRICKS. Wren also does tricks. He sticks his leg out in an arabesque while shouting "LOOOOOK LOOOOK". I do a trick where I hook one leg over the handlebars and shout "Look Wren, look!" Then he throws himself on the ground and rolls around a bit. This thrashing is because he can't do that move and is dismayed by my skill, grace and elegance ;) I urge him to get up and concede to copy his move and he deigns to copy his old move back again, with a twist of one arm out!

Apparently we look quite cute scooting around. Or perhaps it is amusing to people to see a 56 Wii-year old mother scooting with her 3 year old son [Aside: My Wii age yesterday was 56 while Josh's is now 22. If he regresses much further our relationship will be on an awkward footing]

Wren was a bit reserved at Leo's while he ate a rice-cake and peanut butter AND HONEY and a string cheese and frozen blueberries. However, his reserve was quickly eroded by his first trampoline bounce.

Here are some pictures of Leo and Wren on the trampoline.

1. Wren tells Leo what to do. Leo is not sure. Wren is pretending to be a little lion. The little lion thinks that it is too bouncy in the middle and wants Leo to stay at middle so he can be safe at the periphery.

2. But they both fall down anyway.
3. Falling down is funny. So is having hair that stands on end.
4. And jumping up and down is pretty fun too.
5. And falling down is ... well, you probably follow this part of things.

6. Except then you get really crazy hair and it hurts to touch you because you are electrifyingly bouncy. This reminds me of my brother, David's, hair when he was this age. It was always out like a dandelion.

Chilly Green

Determined to buck the Last Child in the Woods trend, I dragged Wren out for a birdwatch at Mercer Slough on Friday. It was a bitter day after a week of sun and we were not well prepared for the wind that swept across the grassland from Lake Washington. Despite the weather, the daffodils were bunching, the apple trees were in blossom and the ducks were mating. Horsetail ferns were pushing up their strange asparagus-like tips and we enjoyed watching flocks of white-capped sparrows, robins and chickadees moving through the old orchards at CUH.

Here are some pictures from that morning.

It was cold and I only had my bunny hat in the car so I wore that. As often happens with something on your head, I quickly forgot about it and only later realized why the posses of dog walkers were giving me smiles and nods. I had assumed it was the indefatigable cuteness of Wren.

Over by the pond Wren saw some Northern Shovelers 'fighting'. They were actually mating but it did not look friendly. The drake had pounced on the female duck and thrust his tail over her to the point that she was submerged beneath him and desperately sticking her head out from underwater while he did his "fighting" on her. This picture is of the drake mating. The duck is completely submerged beneath as he holds her down with his beak!

Wren found the horsetail ferns fascinating and broke some off to "see what is inside".

Outside CUH Wren found a fountain and asked for coins to drop in wishes. He had four pennies and one nickel and wished for:

An excavator

A digger

A ferry boat

A red dragon and

Candy

Since I had wished for a coffee we retreated to Zoka where I enjoyed one. Josh has challenged me to try his new diet (involving a single month long behavior change. His was only drinking water instead of other sweeter beverage options) and so I am now forsworn from pastries, even those which are remnants of Wren's indulgence.

We have just bought a Wii Fit board. Wii Fit analyzed the family and told us that Joshua is overweight, I am on the cusp of normal/overweight and Frost is at risk of being overweight.

Frost is rather alarmed and asked for a banana for bedtime snack instead of his usual nutella toast X2 option. He is thrilled and appalled by the accusation and reminded me of something Principal Skinner said "there is right and there is rude," calling Wii Fit rather rude. He says he will not let his friends do it in case they are offended. Good call. For the record, Frost is not overweight but he is large for his age - in the 75% percentile or so, which has probably been interpreted as rather risky weight wise. I explained that he is a fine size but of course he could eat better as he eats far too much sugary food and does not like to eat many vegetables. We shall see if this lasts.

To the woods, the woods

A few weeks ago we went on the first PSMS Spring mushroom hunt to forage for morels in the Tolt River watershed area. The starting point was a State Park near carnation, an area well known to me from that summer we took a share in a CSA and drove out to the far east-side weekly to collect our produce. In a surprising development, Josh came with us despite the early hour and the promise of dragging around the woods hunting for fungi he is not particularly driven to explore gastronomically.

The family set out a bit ahead of the crowd (about 100) to to the cottonwoods, crossing this cable footbridge with wide wooden slats. Once a few people were on board it bounced alarmingly and Wren clung to us as we crossed.

We thought there might be a troll...

This is the view down the river. Scenes like this make me want to buy a canoe and paddle off. The downside of canoeing is that its much harder to paddle upstream and I don't know how we can all paddle and still have someone to fetch us.

Frost looks through a viewing scope which superimposes the image of an old bridge over the river. That bridge was swept away in flooding a few years ago, and a new bridge was built.

"I see a troll!"

We battled through the cottonwoods for a while finding very few fungi. Sometimes I thought it was too wet, othertimes I thought it was too dry. Frost thought it was too nettly, Wren thought it was too brambly. We found some interesting things but no morels!

Frost says "I have become VERY FAT" [he has hidden his coat in his shirt]

"I will defend Wren from trolls"

Of the lot of us, Josh was most overcome with despair at the lack of mushrooms and the seeming endlessness of nature. Coming to a pebbled beach he finally crumbled under the pressure of all the outdoorsyness and buried his face in his hands.

"Perhaps if I press my hands hard against my eyes I will see trolls"

Spirits buoyed by throwing stones into the river, the small band straggled home across the river. The icy water below, the sun above. Wren collected yellow dandelion flowers and Frost tried to make the bridge sway and us fall over.

Notice the stone, suspended at the line between water and bank.

It was a good day of suffering in the woods and we felt justified in relaxing in the living room for the rest of the day and playing with D&Ds.

Most elegant afternoon with pretweens

Its cold again. I should be used to it by now - the off-again on-again relationship that Seattle has with spring. Now we're budding, now we're scraping ice off the windscreen. Now we're planting summer seed, now we're wondering weather the early blossoms will make it through the night.

Wren has been miserable with the onset of rain. He dislikes the experience of water falling from the sky. What's there to like about being WET and COLD. He is very un-local in his appreciation of the barrier of an umbrella which prevents all contact. By contrast, when I suggested Josh take a raincoat to work today in anticipation of watching the first Seattle Sounders game in the cold rain, he said "I have a hoodie."

Frost is similar.

As we waited for the school bus this morning, Wren crying in his raincoat, me in Gortex, Frost stood oblivious in a long sleeved t-shirt.

"Where's your coat?" I asked. "Its pouring."

"Oh, I like it like this," he said. "Its in my backpack."

For the record, Tara walked to work in the rain and had to have Fred deliver her dry clothes to school. It was that wet.

Now the boys are playing a game with Po from Kung-fu panda. Wren was given Po for his birthday and it is a favorite now they have seen the movie. The boys work out big attacks to do on Po, inspired by Po's famous resiliance. He is thrown to the ceiling, tied up in string, thrown down the basement stairs and bowled over with a ball.

In the background I can hear the sad strains of Nouvelle Vague singing God Save the Queen. I love rainy days. The rain provides a backbone of stillness against which everything else [read screaming games, yards of tape stuck to things, shoes thrown on the table, clothes discarded in sodden heaps in the corridor, shouts of "DUDE DUDE YOU HIT ME IN THE FACE"] is tolerable.

Frost has just changed the ipod to play his favorite song, Black Eyed Peas - I gotta Feeling - followed shortly no doubt by Bright Eyes - Road to Joy.

Frost will be a tween before I know it. When does tweenagerness begin? He's clearly pretween now.

Video of Wren Jumping into hammock

Now processing on Youtube. Will be available soon.

Slips of tongue

Wren has been using his increasingly large vocabulary and coming up with many strange expressions. Here are some recent phrases that have me smiling:

"I am pawning" - cutting plants that are too big in the garden and cutting up dirt.

"We must go to TOYS OR US!" Sure does feel like toys vs parents.

"Mummy, mummy. I just remembered the dreams we dreamed. Do you remember? Member we were fighting big robots?" Does Wren think we share our dreams if I am in them? I am confused but it has a strange logic to it.

This afternoon Wren told me a lie for the first time. He had some pill bugs in a tupperware that he was going to keep "as pets". He took them into his room but came out to the garden to tell me that there was a big mess in his room.

"What happened?" I asked, when I saw it. Dirt and water were smeared across the carpet.

"FROST did it." he said.

"But Frost is at school," I pointed out.

"He did it before he went away," suggested Wren.

"Hrmmm" I pondered, looking at the spilled earth, the water, the second tupperware in which the unfortunate pill bugs were now swimming.

"I think you put water in there and then you tried to pour the earth out into the water and some fell on the floor. Is that right?"

"Don't say that!"

"Why did you pour all that water in?"

"You said that we must give them water!" [I meant a little moisture not a few cups... but.. my bad]

"Its ok, we will help the pill bugs and put out some water and let them go...."

"NOOO, they are my pets!"

"Ok, you can keep them a bit but please don't make up stories and tell me a lie about what happened. I won't be cross if you tell me the truth."

"NO. Now I am MAD because YOU say THAT!" Wren glowers at me with arms crossed over his little chest. Turning away fiercely.

"I feel MAD!"

A Mission, a Treasure and some Kung-fu Panda

The Seattle Public School system recognizes the major public holidays and also a number of "in-service" days where teachers do professional development activities. As a public school parent, all you need to know about these days is that The Kids Are Not In School.

Today was one of those days.

Frost had a couple of friends over. From a kid's perspective, they are fun times because many working parents are scrambling for play-dates for their kids and it is an opportunity to catch up with friends from other schools. Frost played with Isaac and Matthew, both boys he would be proud to count among his "best friends". The cool thing about these boys is that they all have fervent imaginations and love dramatic play and action role-playing.

Thus it was that I headed off on a walk to the donut shop with four boys carrying swords, wearing headbands and a few scooters too. The dialogue among them was something like this:

"Wren is the king... we are the armed guard."

"No, he is the prince."

"Ok, the prince."

"Wait a minute I have to fetch something." [boy exits screen left to house, returning with an imitation machine gun.]

"Frost, didn't you say that the Mission to Save the Pickle was in the middle ages?"

"Yes."

"Oooooh. Wait, wait." [Another boy rushes off to find a staff instead of the machine gun]

etc etc until we are all equipped.

We depart.

"I hear a noise. Hush!"

"What is it?"

"Hear that jingling? [nods as we hear wind chimes in the distance] That is the sound of goblins saddling their horses."

Wren [anxiously] "There are no goblins?"

"YES, there are GOBLINS! We will defend the king!"

"The PRINCE."

"Prince."

"Argh argh, cha cha" [they all attack a bush]

"Wait Wait"

Wren scoots up and flings himself into a violent attack on the bush.

"Wait, wait! I hear the enemy's spies. The crows are the spies!"

"OUR spies are blue jays."

"Anyone hear a blue jay?"

Me: "I throw the old bits of pizza in the road for the carrion fowl."

"What?"

"Carrion fowl. Carrion is dead meat and that's what I call the crows on a battlefield."

"Oh, the CARRION FOWL. Argh cha cha."

They swipe at the crows which are hopping along the road.

"See, they warn about us!"

"SHSHHHH"

"What is it? [Wren, worried] THERE ARE NO GOBLINS."

"I hear the dwarves ahead."

[I hear a circular saw cutting lumber.]

"It is the dwarf mine."

.....

We reach the Ravenna Rock and attack it because it is now a goblin fortress. Unfortunately, during the attack Isaac is wounded by a poisoned arrow. The goblins use serpent blood on it and he starts to die, falling down. Matthew tries to heal him but Wren rubs a dandelion on him and he recovers a bit but has some kind of brain damage and can only slurr. Also, his skin is green. Matthew has 5 arrows embedded in his shield (he is carrying a wooden shield). Frost flings himself at the rock a few times and the boys all leave a piece of camourflage fabric on a rope to show they have defeated the goblins.

As we walk along we pick up treasures and secrets left by others. We find a pink sock (aka, the pink mushroom), a small stone elephant (a kings treasure), a broken drill bit (a goblin arrow), dandelions (healing potion, ultimately restoring Isaac's speech), a secret message tucked behind a stone (a clue for a treasure hunt which cryptically directs us to the library bike rack for clue #6, we track it down but find nothing), a single leather glove (Matthew calls the Glove of Durin which empowers the user to craft a weapon that cannot be destroyed) and finally, magically, $13 lying in the street.

The boys tussle over the money (which I see first) and I give them each $1 (not Wren) and spend the $10 on juice and donuts at Top Pot. On the way home Frost asks me repeatedly "If I had seen the $10 first would I have kept it?" "YEEES. His friends chorus again and again".

They boys believe that Top Pot is an Inn and they become slightly drunk on the beers they drink there but thankfully Matthew remains alert for danger as we make the trip home. Somewhere past the library the weariness sets in and they give up on the alternative world and want to rush home to relax and play ipod games and drink water.

The walk was wonderful for all of us, most particularly for Wren. He has a hard time with play-dates of big boys. He wants to play but much of the time he is in the way with an uncanny sense for the most desired object. He fights to capture it and then cries with exuberant betrayal when the elder boys' good nature gives way under the force of their own game. They tell Wren to go away or bribe him out of the gun/guy/toy/hat/ipod/controller that he has commandeered and he collapses in gulping misery.

I also struggle with some play-dates. I am not sure whether this is a symptom of social anxiety or being a crowd-pleaser, but I feel a personal pressure that the kids enjoy themselves here. I dread the moment when they say "I'm bored, there's NOTHING TO DO HERE." Or worse, "I'm bored and the ONLY THING TO DO HERE IS PLAY THIS [TEEN-RATED SHOOTER GAME]" and then look at me as if I am the dullest parent ever. At this point Frost comes out as the emissary of good times and asks belligerently why I won't let his friends play this blood-and-gutsy game that their parents would surely forbid if they even guessed it was in the house. Hhe has to be ballsy and a bit tough with me to show his friends its not his fault that they can't have a good time here.

At some point in every play-date I have a strong urge to offer the children money or sugar to just Be Happy Now! I wonder what is the Most Fun Thing for them that is not M rated.

Thankfully, today I could offer them donuts and money (thanks to the luck of our walk) and I even gave the lactose intolerant kid pizza because he said please and he didn't mind getting a rash. See? He had a good time, really!!!

This evening we watched some Kung Fu Panda with Wren. It is his favorite movie and I recommend it (along with the Moisture Festival which we saw last night). At one point the master says to his student -

"The past is a memory, the future is uncertain but this moment is gift. That is why they call it The Present."

I really liked that.

Late last night I received an email posted to a support group by a woman who offered me a lot of email support when we were considering Wren's surgical options. Her son had TOF, repaired as a child, and was 16 years old. He died suddenly on the playground outside church of v-tach (heart attack). His mother and an EMT were there and did CPR immediately but he died. He had had arrhythmias but wasn't symptomatic.

I know that heart defects are varied and nothing is certain, but you do all you can with appointments and monitoring changes and hoping that everything is STABLE and can be HANDLED - there is a lot of life you can't control. You have to just take the present and make up your story in the steps you take as you go along.

I have been making up animals out of felt - a late joiner of the needle-felting craze that has swept my friends over the last year. I have made a bunny, a starfish, a bat and a chickadee. It is quite magical and fun. I shall post pictures later (on this post or the next).

Another preschool

Toured ANOTHER preschool today. Something must be wrong with me - I just didn't click with it even though it was nearby, highly reviewed and had a happy modified montessori vibe going. There was a pervasive smell of cat pee, the place was a bit rickety and I am not sure Wren needs to learn reading and writing (using Handwriting without Tears) in preschool.

When I asked about the academic focus and wondered what was going to happen in Kindergarten when these skills were typically learned, I was told that Kindergarten was really about social adjustment.

Hang on? Isn't that the wrong way around? Isn't kindergarten for the early literacy stuff and preschool about social adjustment?

Nope? Kindergarten is harder because it has more transitions so its better to get the academics done beforehand so the k kids can focus on all that hard social coping.

Sigh.

I used to be impressed when kids came to KapKa already reading and writing. Now, I see this as a manufactured skill. TICK. Reading. TICK. Writing. TICK. Ability to sit still and focus.

This all makes me feel rebellious.

Mom, By FROST

Mom is the future of the present,

she is a heart whose love knows no boundaries.

She is all my favorite things

stuffed up in one bundle.

She is a million birthdays

every second.

Every time my Mom says "hi"

Its like 1000 presents

but

my favorite thing about my Mom is...

her sense of humor!

[Like when I do something bad

You get kind of angry with me

but later, you get kind of happy with me.]

(and everything else)

but then comes WREN.

That's another poem.