Happy Birthday Jesus and Me

Its almost time for the after-holiday blues.  Wren's birthday is over, Christmas is over, my birthday is over and everyone knows that New Year doesn't really exist for people with kids (who can get a good babysitter on New Year's Eve and even if they could, who would want to go out and stay up late rather than sleep?)   So really, for me, 2012 has begun and if I can say so - I have high hopes!   It better be a good year.  I am holding out for good weather, fewer wars, fewer calamities, good cardiology appointments, a pet that stops peeing on the carpet and health for my friends and family.

But first, the recap of Holiday 2011:

Christmas in Seattle was windy, so windy that the lighted reindeer ceased swaying his head with squeaky regularity and fell right over on the lawn.  The holiday lights swayed mightily, so that verily, they pulled the 24 hour timer off the porch ceiling and left it hanging by a black cable.  Remarkably, they kept shining in the spirit of fossil fuels and the human spirit and all things bright and festive. 

The reindeer fell under the Christmas wind.

There were the usual small obstacles and setbacks during Christmas presents.  Toys were restrained with twist ties and hard plastic shells.  The scissors became lost in the pile of wrapping.  My attempt to write down Who gave us What failed somewhere after the 4th gift and the leg of Wren's new Adventure Time Finn figure broke off due to a manufacturing defect and over-eager handling (by Wren's mother).

Then there were the peculiar gifts.  The necessary debate about the chocolate picture of a pirate ship with silver cannon balls.  Was it a game or a picture?  Should it be eaten or preserved (A. Eaten). 

Wren's chocolate ship (which is no more).  His weird expression
is his attempt to look normal for a photograph.  Wren says "that expression
means that I am kind of neutral." 

The electric hamsters were popular, especially the one that came with a scorpion tank which shot green missiles at Beezle.

Joshua complained he had too many gifts (because he bought himself some).

For the first time in his life, Frost wanted order to appreciate gifts and asked that we open "one at a time" but Wren rejected the notion and kept saying "is there one for me?"   Whenever he received a gift he liked (and he liked almost all of them very much), he would ask "Who gave this to me" and then say "I LOVE you SO MUCH!"

Is this for me?  Is this one?

Frost, opening a gift Wren wrapped. 
It contained some of Wren's Playmobil repacked in something
from Amazon.   Frost acted pleased even though
they were his toys before Wren inherited them.

Wren, opening the Aquaplay which (a flood revealed)
is probably best suited to summer outdoor play.

Frost hands out gifts one at a time for a short period.

Frost before opening gifts.

Wren's favorite gifts were the Thundercats sword, some Squinkies while Frost diplomatically "liked a lot of things."   If pressed, he admitted his favorite present overall was all of them.

Josh made gingerbeer for breakfast.

As with all good Grown-ups, Joshua bought the family the gift he wanted to receive.  It was an Apple TV.   Unfortunately, on Christmas Day the apple TV didn't work because it lacked an HDMI cable.  Lame.   It is now working.  Joshua and I have decided to cancel our Comcast Cable and go to shows on demand and free-to-air TV.   After years and years of cable we are going to have an antenna again!

On Christmas Day itself, the boys got up at 7.20am which was pretty okay.  Josh woke up about the same time which meant I had to get up too.

Beezle wishes Josh "Happy Christmas"
"We say MERRY CHRISTMAS in America, Mom"
shout the boys. "MERRY Christmas"

Among the most contentious gifts was a jelly bean dispenser I bought at the Thrift Store and refilled from Costco.  It dispenses Jelly Beans with the twist of a knob but the manual said you could set it to only dispense with a quarter (money).   After a short but spirited debate with the boys who felt it was unfair to give them a gift and then make them spend money to use it, and a shorter sociological study in which I observed that unrestricted jelly-bean access lead to Jelly Beans before breakfast, for breakfast and after breakfast... etc Josh and I decided to set it to MONEY MODE.  After half an hour of googling the coin mechanisms for gumball machines and trying to make the metal blade fit the metal cog Josh said:

"This thing is broken.  They threw it out because it is b-r-o-k-e-n"

He worked on in for another half hour with pliers and told me it was fixed but it wasn't and then he said something impolite and went to play Minecraft or watch Soccer or something silent and intense that did not involve Jelly Beans.

I put the Jelly Bean machine on the top shelf in the pantry but this morning it had mysteriously returned to the kitchen counter.

This is all to show that you should really only give your family the presents that you want to live with, not the ones they want.

I shall try and do better next year but overall it was a very happy Christmas, everyone felt loved and appreciated, Joshua went back to sleep on the couch and we didn't kill any pigs or animals for our dinner.

A good holiday for a good start to 2012.

Wren's Teeth

This morning Wren had his first crown.  It is silver and he is quite proud of it.  Joshua said "you are now a cyborg because you have a metal tooth"

While we were scooting Wren asked:  "Mom, is my tooth made of metal?"

I replied that it was made of surgical steel.

"It IS made of metal Dad!" he said gleefully. 

"I have a metal tooth!"

Enthusiasm aside, Wren is just five years old so its very unfortunate that it came to this and you are probably thinking is this dentist on crack?

She is not.  She is a really most excellent and kind dentist.  When we first started attending her practice five years ago we could only get an appointment for preschoolers because she was so highly regarded and fully booked during school hours.  Years later we have caused her to come in twice on holidays to deal with Wren's dental issues.  So, she is nice and skilled but we are rather weary of seeing even the most lovely dentist.

So, how did we come to this?

Kids with heart defects have to be careful with dental care and hygiene.  You may have heard the urban myth about human bites being the most infectious?  It is most likely untrue but while being less toxic than a dog's bite, a human mouth has plenty of thriving bacteria.   People with various heart conditions are at higher risk of getting bacterial endocarditis from bacteria in the bloodstream, released during dental procedures.   As a result, Wren's must get more aggressive dental treatment and take amoxicillan at every appointment.  Yes, I know that's an antibiotic by the way. 

Because we live in the progressively anti-antibiotic environment of naturopathic Seattle, I am going to give you the longer answer about dental care so you don't blanch when I mention Wren has had antibiotics 8 or 9 times in the past 4 months, that's with every filling.  But wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

"Certain heart conditions and structural defects increase the risk of developing endocarditis (heart valve infection) following dental procedures. Bacterial Endocarditis means infection in the heart, specifically the heart valves (bacteria = germs; endo = inside; carditis = heart inflammation). It occurs when bacteria spread through the bloodstream and land inside the heart and grow there. Usually, if there are bacteria circulating in the bloodstream, they don't stick to the inside of the heart: the blood flows smoothly. If the heart is abnormal due to certain types of surgery or other defects, there may be rough surfaces causing turbulent blood flow (known as a murmur) to which bacteria can attach and cause infection. Antibiotics are used to try to prevent this dangerous infection in some cases. The decision whether to take antibiotics depends on two major factors: first, is the procedure likely to cause a significant number of bacteria to enter the bloodstream; and second, is the heart particularly subject to infection."

Source:  ParentHeartWatch

Wren required 5 fillings when he had his first dentist visit.  We don't know why he had so many cavities.  He and Frost eat a similar diet but Frost has had only one filling by age 10.  These things are sent to try us, I suspect.

Unfortunately, for reasons not fully understood, some of Wren's fillings in the lower molars keep falling out, cracking and coming loose.  Since October, we have been to the dentist for a cavity replacement every second week - for one of two fillings.  Finally, when the right cavity fell out for (what feels like and may well be) the 5th time, we decided to try something else.  Wren has been doing very well with the new fillings, the doctor does them quickly with a dental dam or cotton rolls, but he grinds his teeth at night and for that or some other reason, they are not remaining in.

The new plan is to crown all the teeth that have recurrent filling loss.

Today, for the first crown, it took about an hour for the whole appointment and the worst part was getting on the "tooth raincoat" or dental dam to keep the tooth dry.  Wren has a strong gag reflex and so dental work causes him to panic when his open mouth causes him to retch.  Coupled with some drama and discomfit from the analgesic shot, he was very sad and stricken.

Sadly, a third filling which had not been replaced to date had looked odd to me the night before.  I asked the dentist to look at that too and she said it has also cracked.  She gave me the option of a crown next week or another temporary, done today.  I picked the temporary as it may give us a few weeks of wear and allow Wren to do some forgetting of the trauma before the next crown.  One down, two to go.

He watched two episodes of MAD TV on the iPad and I had a core workout to balance on the dentist's chair and hold the iPad above him while not getting in the way of the dentist and her assistant.   At the end of it, Wren was sad and needed a smoothy so Josh went to Whole Foods for one.

Peanut Butter Moo'd and Minecraft helped during the recovery and he is now a happy cyborg.  Till next time.

Badass Poser

Every now and again the boys turn the music on loud and "do a dance party."

Other times, Wren suddenly decides to dress "like a bad dude."

This was one of those moments.  Music and badass.  It was the first time Wren totally dressed himself (jeans over his pajamas, bling and flip flops).  He is wearing the dragon shirt he received as a birthday present.  Perhaps it was the shirt that inspired the badassness.

Wren:  See, I am a bad guy.
Josh: Well, you should try holding your gun like this then and
let me help you do up your pants.

 

Wren:  I hold it like this?
Josh:  Yes.  And who made your hat?
Wren:  Mom made it.  Its Mom's hat.

Wren:  Wait, wait.  I have one more.  How does this one look? 
Did you get that one?  Let me see!

Wren is Five Years Old

Wren dressed as the Birthday Boy for his birthday ceremony at school

In case you missed this fact.  Wren has turned FIVE.

There is no appreciable difference in him although he wondered whether he had grown 3 inches on the morning of his birthday.  He felt that there should be a visible change.

Here are some pictures of him on his birthday and at school.

There were honey buns for snack at school on Wren's birthday

Wren showing us the book he received from Grandad Peter.  We are
also showing Grandad Peter because International Family do not
always have the luxury of seeing their gift.

Wren with the school pig.

Christmas Shopping with The Boys

Today was my first real day of vacation.  As a very part-time worker, that means the first day I was not trying to do two things at once.  I planned to focus on Christmas Holidays.

Of course, then plans changed.

One of my clients was offered a fabulous opportunity to pitch our products at a national level and so I ended up on the phone and laptop for much of the morning instead of taking coffee on the Eastside while Wren hammered out some Minecraft and Frost played MTG.

All was not lost.  By 2.45pm we had hit the 520 bridge and were crossing from the eclectic outdoorsy nonconformism of Seattle to the high-end mall of Bellevue Square.   It was busy.  Driving over the 520 bridge we noticed the flashing signs announcing tolling would commence on December 29th.  New speed limit signs have been installed which can change the speeds to compensate for traffic volume.  Frost and Wren chanted whenever the speed limits changed.  At one point they flashed from 40 mph to 30 mph as I approached causing the boys to shriek a warning.

Parking at B-S was awful.  Two entrances were closed with LOT FULL signs up and we had to loop the block to enter of 4th Ave NE rather than wait in the endless line to turn into the main entrance.  We let the luck duck out of the window to find us a parking and pretty soon an elderly couple waved us after them as they walked back to their car.

We were parked!

Our first stop was The Lego Store.  It was standing room only.  Wren had some money to spend - his birthday money from Great Granny Charlotte.  He wanted to buy "fighting man lego".   We looked around and he finally settled on a Pirates of the Caribbean Set which will have to be built with assistance.  It has "a cage of bones."

We had dinner at Boom Noodle and then headed to Sephora to buy some scent for me.  Frost and Wren tested lots of scents and Frost managed to squirt Wren in the eye with something from DKNY which burned a lot.  A nice aesthetician popped Wren up on a stool and tried to dab his eye clean with a cotton pad spritzed with water but I didn't think it was working so I licked his eye clean which rather horrified him.  At some point during the Sephora interlude, Frost got lost and ran out of money to buy my gift so he was stressed and upset when he finally found me.

He got lost again after leaving me at the Red Mango store with all the bags and saying "I am going to find Sephora."  He thought I would stay still there, anchored somewhat by material objects and sloppy frozen yogurt but he underestimated my desire to continue with our mission.

We also discovered a gourmet oil and vinegar store which was weird because I have had "Gourmet Oil and Vinegar" on my wish list for AGES and never thought a specialist store would exist.  Frost and Wren tasted vinegars and oils, much to the amusement and appreciation of the staff.  They said "Children generally tune out in our store."

Frost at the oil and vinegar bar in Bellevue Square.

Wren liked truffle oil but his favorite was fig infused vinegar.  Frost's favorite was blood orange oil.   I let each of them buy their favorite for my birthday present.   Frost ate a lot of extra bread and oil to make sure he really liked them.  Wren kept losing bits of bread from the poky toothpicks into the oils.  The bread was really nano-croutons, not big enough to poke with a toothpick so it was not surprising.

I am also unsure whether he changed his toothpick often enough.

Oddly, I met three people who commented that I was "from South Africa?"  Seriously, in months in Seattle nobody has made a point of it.  The oil store carries a range from the Cape and the guy in the Microsoft Store guessed I was South African.  Finally, a fellow customer in the Stride Rite Store (where we got Wren snow boots on sale) wanted to talk about all her South African jewish friends at the JCC.

We came home and the boys played.... Minecraft & Halo.

Beezle is going crazy with fierce love of the plasticized fabric on the underside of his puppy bed.  He wants to kill the fucker since he has been denied access to badgers for his whole life, really.  Its so unfair.

Blogging on the blogger iPhone app

It was extremely icy this morning when I woke Wren for the antibiotic premed for his 9 AM dentist appointment. It was his eighth dentist appointment in the space of three months as his fillings keep falling out. We are not sure why but at least he's getting better at having them done, repeatedly.

Before we left he begged to bring the iPad so he could listen to the Yogcast Minecraft podcasts but I explained they need wifi to work so we brought Beazle as a therapy dog instead.

Driving home, the sky was a brilliant blue and we can see the neighborhood reflected in the chrome Christmas decorations hanging on the bare cherry tree.

I recorded this blog post on my iPhone.

The 2,592 Thousand Seconds of Christmas

This evening I have ditched making dinner and baked Gingerbread instead.  With days so short and school only letting out a week before Christmas, it seems there is never enough time for Holiday activities like baking and cutting paper snowflakes and shopping for gifts together (instead of making an Amazon Wishlist and sending out cards (not e-cards) and going skating and for light displays and making decorations for the tree and all that.

Everything gets squeezed into a few days of high drama, hence, the gingerbread at 5pm.

"Can I eat another gingerbread man?" Frost asks, wondering how far my festive spirit will take me.
"After dinner." I insist, leaving the exact nature of dinner ambiguous.

The sink is overflowing with mixing bowls, baking trays, spoons and a whisk still dripping with white frosting and I am counting on serving Wren and Joshua with the leftover lamb and beef cottage pie I brought home from the PTA Christmas Party last night.  Frost and I will have to do some kind of exploratory cooking with a can of beans and a panini press.

The sun set two hours ago and its only 6.15pm, the holiday lights I hooked onto the eaves of the house have turned on with their timer (installed today) and we just bought and decorated our tree.

I squeezed it in on a Tuesday night after school - already dark at 4.30pm when we arrived, Wren said "I am freezing I will wait in the car!" but I didn't let him. 

The boys ate two candy canes (each) and had a fight over trees - Wren wanted a tall skinny one while Frost wanted a "bushy one with more room for decorations."   Wren reviled the word "Bushy" and kept shouting "I HATE the BUSHY ONE".   I asked the Christmas Elf assisting us to give us a moment and toured the aisles of trees for a compromise TALL, and full figured one.  Thankfully it was one of the cheapest in the yard - a mere $25 for a 7 foot tree (which is actually 8 ft because it hits our ceiling and had to be trimmed.)

Our Christmas tree with some birthday presents around it.

Is Father Christmas Real
Wren has been battling the tradition of Father Christmas.  Yesterday, he asked me:

Wren:  Mom, tell me the truth of this.  Does Father Christmas 'xist?  I think he does NOT.

One day he will tell me that Father Christmas is not real and that "Mom brings the presents" while the next he will tell me that he knows that he exists because he "sees him with his minds eye".  This mind's eye thing is a recent concept he came up with to explain the fact that his Waldorf teachers at preschool insist there are fairies while others (like me) can't see them.  Wren says you see them "in your minds eye".

This morning the Mind's Eye took on new significance in this conversation:

Wren:  I am getting ALL the mods on my Christmas List.  All the toys except the Ninjago Fire Fortress (a $110 Lego set I said "no way" to."

Shannon:  Who said that?  Did Daddy say that?

Wren:  Father CHRISTMAS said that.

Shannon:  Father Christmas spoke to you?

Wren:  I hear him and GOD with my Mind's EAR.  He is the Boss of Winter and now its Winter so he said I can have all the presents on my list except that Fire Fortress.

Shannon:  I think he's wrong honey.  You can't get all the toys on that list.

Wren:  Well, if he is WRONG then GOD Does Not 'ZIST!

Shannon:  [WTF?]   What has that got to do with it?

Wren:  Well, Father Christmas and God do not lie and make mistakes.  Does Jesus LIE? 

Shannon:  No.

Wren:  And you said that that they is WRONG and I do not get all the presents so then THEY DO NOT ZIST.

Shannon:  Maybe you didn't hear them right?

Wren:  I do.    I have a minds eye and a mind's ear and with my mind's ear I can hear moles digging in the underground "dig, dig, dig" and I can use my mind money - it cost 190 points - to get minds feeling so you can feel the earth turning and the sun turning and the trees growing with their magic.  And I can see father Christmas and fairies with my mind's eye!

I must now go and microwave that Shepherds Pie!

Wren drew this Rat King / Lizard King character and asked us to
make it so Josh and I made it from FIMO.  He is going to stand up
to be used in D&D miniatures

Wren doing a forced smile at Swansons where we went for lunch

I am DONE now.  I demand a cookie.  Stop taking pictures of me
with your stupid iPhone 4S 10 mpx camera

I am a fish.  How many days till Christmas?
How many hours in a day, again?

When are you going to die of oldness?

Wren:  Mum when are you going to die of oldness?

Shannon:  Me?

Wren:   Yes, you.  When you get more crinkly?

Shannon:  I don't know.  In a long time.  When do you think?

Wren:  This December?  This year.

Shannon:  You think that I will die of oldness this year!!

Wren:  No, get more crinkly.  Like this...
[Wren draws wiggly lines on the paper]

Shannon:  Oh, WRINKLY.
[thinking how to approach this]

Shannon:  I don't think I will get suddenly wrinkly this year.  Am I wrinkly now?

Wren:  Your forehead looks kind of wrinkly.  Do I look wrinkly on my face?

Shannon:  No, you don't.  Why is that?

Wren:  I don't know. Maybe that is because I haven't grown up to my maximum size.  People grow up to their maximum size and then they grow crinklier and crinklier and crinklier.

Shannon:  How crinkly do you get before you die?

Wren:  As grown up as you can get.  Like this... I am this tall then grow -->  Grow --> GROW till super tall.  

Shannon:  I have stopped getting taller any more.  What happens then?

Wren:  You just get older and older and older and then......  I don't know.

"I am just being sarcactus"

Wren has spent most of the last 2 days in pajamas.  This is in reaction to having to get dressed for preschool in the dark most mornings.  Winter is a real drag at the moment even though we have been enjoying brilliant icy mornings with saphire blue skies which look all the brighter against the crimson maples still in leaf.

Beezle admires the fall color at Greenlake

Wren is almost 5 years old.  If he lived in  less than a month he could be going to Kindergarten.  He is talkative, obsessed with Minecraft and canned cream and uses many long words coined from Frost.

Today, he said something terrible to Frost and then said "I am just being sarcactus."
On interrogation he explained that Frost had told him "Being sarcactus means you are saying bad stuff by joking."

"I am a duuuude.  I am dressed for dancing. 
I am in a dance club.  I like to dance to Revenge - this song about
a Minecraft guy who has a diamond sword and at the end
of the song he kills a bunch of Creepers."

I wasn't sure he had it right.

Why does everyone want to ask the AI the meaning of life?

I have my new phone and the boys have taken it over to chat to Siri.  It had lots of trouble understanding me - perhaps its the accent or that my requests to find things were not commonplace.  Frost also finds it more successful on esoteric matters and ventures there.

He started off with the big questions "Siri, what is the meaning of life?"  Siri replied that it was 42 and then advised that the boys show kindness to living things and live a life of good intentions.

Wren then asked "What is the meaning of DOG?"

After thinking a moment Siri produced a fact sheet about dogs which included the information that:

"A domesticated carnivorous mammal (Canis familiaris) related to the foxes and wolves and raised in a wide variety of breeds. "

I have to go to the bathroom" Frost shouts to me.

"Sorry, I couldn't find any public toilets around here." Siri announces.

This started Frost off on another tangent.  "Mom" he shouts from the bathroom in an echoey way. "You can use this to FIND PLACES!  Where is Boom Noodle?"

It misheard him a few times and came up with odd misspellings of nothing.

Frost said: "I am going to kill you"

And received a sanguine: "Okay."

"Wanna watch TV."

"I have found a number of electronics stores close to me."

"I play the drum!"

Siri played music.

"Mom, mom!  You can make the phone play music!"

Wren is happy because it has Angry Birds.

I am still a bit confused by the thing.  It has imported my gmail contact list as my contacts which means I can txt everyone but have no phone numbers.  I am able to browse my new Audubon Mushroom guide wherever we go but am cagey about uploading my "sightings" as they are shared on a GPS enabled map, giving away location of any choice edibles.

I have taken some pictures of Wren and I and they seem crisp.  At least my blog will have pictures again if I can figure out how to synch iPhoto via the iCloud which is not yet interfacing with MobileMe.

I asked Siri for help with my contacts and she replied that she was not allowed to make contacts.

I am sure Siri could garble up a nice saying along the lines of "The road to hell is a cloud lined with good intentions."