Choking is not okay

Firstly, Rosie is okay.

Rosie's daycare just called me today to let me know that another child choked her this morning. The way they described the incident is that Rosie was quietly reading a book and a boy in her class demanded it from her. She was still reading it, so she said no. So, he choked her!

The director explained that the teachers, the parent, and he were all in lengthy meetings today to discuss how to handle this, because apparently this boy has had other aggressive physical incidents.

I asked if the child was pulled from school for the day and no, he wasn't. Apparently, each time this child has acted out, he has told his mother that he was provoked first, even though his teachers and other observers (there was a parent in the room this morning) did not see any
provocation. Each time, the mother believed the child instead of the teachers, the director or other observers. Provoked or not, choking is seriously anti-social behavior!

I understand that this would be a hard situation if it was my child was choking other children, but parental denial is not productive. We have worked with Rosie on the few, minor hitting incidents she's had; she knows that if her teachers tell us about any hitting or being mean to a
friend, her at-home priviledges are revoked (snacks, TV, etc.). Nothing has been reported to us for months.

I'll be following up with this to see what will be done; the next step is disenrollment for the choker. I feel badly that Rosie still had to be in school with him all day after he attacked her! Poor Rosie.

Happy birthday Kelly & Heather!

I wish you both the most excellent of days! And it sounds like you had a kick-ass celebration in NJ! Rock on and keep living large!
xo, Ms. Nylon

Dash and Rosie, each at 18 months

At Dashiell's 18-month appt (on 12/27/06),
he weighed 24 lbs, 14 oz (40th%)
he was 32 1/4 inches tall (50th%)
and his head was 19 inches around (65th%)

When Rosie was 18 months (5/27/04),
she weighed 26 lbs (75th%)
she was 32 1/4 inches tall (75th%)
and her head was 18 3/4 inches around (90th%)

We like to eat. Mostly.

Despite the idyllic dinnertime scene that these photos convey, dining in our household can be a stressful time. Of course, Dash eats most anything and AJS cooks fantastic, sometimes exotic, fare (many of my friends would love to have such a cook at home!); it's Rosie that usually turns things sour.

We are trying ways of expanding her menu -- she is super-picky and only eats a few select items. I can't remember the last new food that she has tried. What you see her eating is plain spaghetti and edamame, which are some of Rosie's staples.

The rule is that we offer her a small selection of foods and from them, she must have at least one starch, one protein, and one vegetable. Lately, our tack has been to threaten to take away privileges (TV, books before bed) if she doesn't have a balanced meal. She, in turn, negotiates with us, telling us that if we give her kisses and hugs, she'll eat, and then says that she's full if we don't give her a fourth serving of rice (without tasting any chicken). Sigh.

I'll let you know if we have any breakthroughs!

The importance of trivia

A post on an acquaintance's blog prompted a memory of how necessary it is for the brain to become sidetracked. In 2001, I lived, worked, and played in DC. A few days after 9/11, all our friends were completely freaked, depressed, or just drinking heavily. For some reason, amongst all this horror, an email thread between several of us sparked a ridiculously trivial question: do blue foods exist? Many bizarre, goofy, wonderful arguments later, everyone latched on for dear life and came away feeling much better. Here is the only excerpt that I saved (because it was a brilliant contribution by my dear AJS):

See, we still haven't refined our distinctions of either "blueness" or "foodness." Do we exclude man-made comestibles? If so, we have to exclude the cheeses because they don't occur naturally without some manipulation on the part of a sentient being familiar with the black art of curd fermentation (viz, the cheesemaker). Similar situation with the Kool Aids and blue curacaos and the blue part of the tricolor Bingo Bomb Pops they sell on the Mall in the summer.

But what of the naturally occurring blue foods? Using Mlle. Wyman's trialectic, if it's blue on the vine, bowl, and fingers, we should consider it a blue food. But therein lies a faulty syllogism.

For the moment, let's pretend you're Professor Peabody and you've just set the Wayback Machine for April 1789. You're trapped on board the life raft of the H.M.S. Bounty with Captain Bligh, and he just so happens to have a gangrenous blue-inked tattoo of the word "blue" on his left buttock. And for the sake of argument, let's say he's got the word "point" tattooed on his right buttock, to remind him of his favorite species of oyster. This, the result of a bar bet gone horribly awry.

Everybody on board, even brave Little Pip, is slowly starving to death. Now, by La Wyman's rationale, the captain's left buttock could be considered "blue food," in the sense of being edible (albeit revolting); being tattooed the color blue; turning blue from gangrene; being a written representation of the word "blue," and blue in the sense of involving full frontal (or in this case, rear) nudity. And I can say without hyperbole that this is the most ridiculous argument I've ever made.

Have I told you how much more fun this is than actually working?

New Year: 2007!

This weekend was fabulous, excepting a few blips. On new year's eve, I took the kids to Kellygo's house for a combo birthday party-new year bash. It was a fun evening! Once there, I set the kids free to play with their friends (thank god they're up to that now!), baked brownies, drank wine and chatted with other adults. Highlights: Dash somehow tipped over a bottle of blue-raspberry syrup from a shelf in the kitchen and the blue juice shot across the floor into the dining room (freshly painted a bright orange), splashing several guests and the wall that was a good 20 feet away; Rosie kept herself surrounded by Thea's plush horses at all times; and at one point I scanned the room to catch Dash standing behind Lila on a chair -- I had no idea that he could climb on a chair! He has since tried this new skill at home. New year's eve with my friends and our kids is at 7 p.m., (to make tots' bedtimes) and for years now, we have been practicing a Panamanian ritual with grapes, wishes, jumping and kissing as the ball drops. Kelly explains this ritual in more detail on her blog. AJS spent the day hanging out with some highschool buddies; he was home by 6:30 p.m. (must have been a blast, recounting old times).

On Wednesday, I had ordered blinds (yes, how boring, I know) and AJS picked them up on Friday. Monday, hoping to have new window treatments for the new year, I squirreled the tots away with my parents and planned to be drilling and mounting for the rest of the afternoon. So, after reading instructions, getting out the proper implements of destruction, and removing the voluminous, yellowish-greenish jaquard drapes that came with the house, I learned that the hardware kit was missing some necessary components. Aaauuuggh. Now the very large front window has no covering. Whatever, we're not privacy freaks. It'll have to wait till next weekend.

And a bit of slapstick: while Dash was with my parents, my dad strapped him into a stroller before taking him on a walk. Then, he went to look for something in his car? the garage? That's when my mom stepped out of the house to shut the garage door and noticed that Dash's stroller was rolling down the driveway! Screaming, she ran out of the garage to get him -- forgetting that she had just hit the button on the garage door, so -- WHAM!! Smack in the middle of her forehead and she's down! Meanwhile, with all the screaming, my dad caught on to his grandson's predicament and saved the boy before he was in harm's way. My mom's fine; she had a lump and some redness. But, it was hard to keep a straight face while she told the story. :-)

Rosie's 4-Year Checkup

At Rosie's 4-year checkup, she weighed in at 38 pounds and is 40.5 inches tall. She was on the scale by herself, which is pretty normal, but since we were at the doctor's office, she made it traumatic by reaching for me and crying.

The doctor was impressed by her vocabulary and her balancing skills and was able to take her blood pressure (94 over 58) and tested her vision (20/30). She started the hearing test, but halfway through was done with the whole appointment and we didn't get a good reading.

She likes yoga and gymnastics at school, and I'm planning to get her into a dance class as soon as possible!

Xmas Joi de Vivre!

Despite having an ear infection, throat infection and possible RSV, Dash was awfully perky over our holiday weekend. Before bedtime on Friday, his temp was 103.5, so I got him in to see his doctor first thing on Saturday. We met one of his classmates, Lizzy (see the cutie in #11), in the waiting room with _*surprise*_ RSV symptoms, too! We visited Lisa, my sis-in-law, that morning, but cancelled our plans with friends that afternoon, to keep from infecting their kids with the dreaded RSV. Auntie M.came over that evening to bake gingerbread cookies with Rosie while Dash napped (after throwing blocks across the house and climbing on the furniture) and gave me a chance to do dishes, sweep, and pick up our crazy house. Whew! I also baked oatmeal craisin cookies that turned out darned well, I must say!

Christmas was at my parents' house, as usual. I think the day went perfectly! We left for "gromma's" after Dash's nap, opened gifts (woo!) and had some lovely roast! The standout Xmas gift was from my mom--she bought Rosie another American Girl doll; this time it was "Jess", a doll with a Japanese-American heritage. She even has a Japanese middle name, just like Rosie! My mom bought the doll's "hair care kit" so we could curl Jess' hair so we could make her look more like Rosie. Auntie M. painstakingly did just that! Bless her heart. She loves her niece. Dash was just happy to run around, throw balls and terrorize Groucho, my parents' cockatiel.

After wine and pie, AJS had a long nap. And I let him sleep. Merry Christmas, baby!

Ian's First Birthday Party!

We had a fabulous time at Ian's birthday party! The company was excellent, the spread was super-tasty, and Kristin and Nathan have a beautiful home. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of Ian, since we didn't bring our camera, but my dear friend Chuck took some wonderful photos of Rosie and Dash!

Dash found a balloon that was meant for Ian and didn't let go of it all afternoon:

Then Rosie ate some delicious cake (with a little help from me):

And Chuck took some super-fun photos of Dash and Rosie playing in my lap!

Actually, what makes me happiest is this photo, because it's of me and Rosie! I have so many, many photos of me holding Dash that you'd wonder if I had a daughter...

Happy Holidays!

A Dash update!

Hi baby boy!

You're almost 18 months old now and you just had your ear tube surgery two weeks ago. You communicate with us so well that we didn't really notice that you haven't been talking much. Hopefully now you will be adding to your vocabulary. So far, you say mama, dada, ball, olive (lali), cracker (cak), duck, woof-woof (for dogs & cats), more (mo), moo (for cow), and balloon (baaal). You know several hand-signs, especially for milk, more, head, want, banana, broccoli and apple. Your favorite foods are beans (all types), broccoli, chicken, olives, graham crackers (especially chocolate), cheddar, most fruits (especially banana and melon). Lately, you've been climbing on the furniture! You heave yourself up on the couch or ottoman, then move to a table and march around, happy as can be! We of course get you down immediately, but you pop back up as soon as our attention is diverted.

Love,
Mom

Weirdness at the office

Okay, this one isn't about the kids. Yesterday, I was almost the only one in the office and picked up a phone call in a co-worker's cubicle. While I was talking (to the cube's inhabitor), I glanced up and saw a pin stuck in the carpeted wall with a lion's head on it that looked familiar. I pulled it out and saw that it was a logo design that I created ELEVEN YEARS ago!!! The FBI is still using my artwork after eleven years? I'm keeping the pin; I don't think I had saved anything from that project, because I never felt that it was portfolio-worthy work. Anyway, here is my art that I found online, that the pin was based on:

Heh. 1995, staring at me.

James Kim. I'm incredibly saddened and uplifted at once.

I 've been overwhelmed by this story all morning as soon as AJS brought to my attention that the James Kim that's been all over the news as missing in the Oregon wilderness was not just some no-name-hapless-joe but was the host of a techno-gadgets show we used to watch! He was the smart, funny, on-the-cutting-edge, sweet young guy who would somehow manage to put photos of his daughter into his gadget reviews. He was only one year younger than me! And our children are practically the same ages! How could I not get all wrapped up in it? The story is fascinating and gut-wrenching. TV mini-series on the way....?

So here's my redux at what happened. 35-year-old James and 30-year-old Kati and their two daughters (4 years and 7 months) set off in their car from a Thanksgiving holiday on the Oregon coast, headed home to San Francisco. They were driving for hours and missed an exit, instead continuing onto a mountainous side road that wound far in the wrong direction from their destination and any inhabited area. They hit a snow drift, ran out of gas and were snowbound for 5 days before they became desperate enough for James to consider other options. They were running out of food and had no idea when they might be rescued, so James left his young family at their car and left to seek help. Here's an aerial photo of what this area looks like:



He was only wearing jeans, sneakers and a mid-weight coat, not adequate for wet, freezing weather. He had a lighter and an Oregon map, some extra clothes and supplies. According to the clues that searchers uncovered, James walked EIGHT miles in this wilderness and made it back to within a mile from his family when a SHEER CLIFF separated him from their location and he succumbed to the elements and died after being alone for four days. How horrific.

He left Kati with a pretty good setup, like a campground. They were able to heat themselves with the car's heater, then burned the tires when the heater gave out. Kati nursed both girls (YAY FOR BREASTFEEDING!!!) to keep their strength up. Kati and girls were rescued after nine days. Kati was seen by a helicopter pilot, waving an umbrella from her car. James' body was found two days later. God, I can't even imagine.

Dash's ear tubes -- done!

Hey, it's been a week since he had his tubes surgery, but I haven't had any spare time to post. Dash was a real trooper for the whole ordeal. We had to get up super-extra early on a foggy, dreary November morning and Dash didn't have any food at all since Midnight (about 8 hours total). He really didn't complain about it, though! He slept through the 45-minute drive to the surgical center (we had to be there at 6:30 a.m.) and while we waited in the lobby, he was well-distracted by the large fish tank, full of exotic fish.

They brought us to a consult area around 7 a.m., where Dash had to change into an awful, awful, get-it-off-me-now bright-yellow hospital gown and he continued to yank on it until he was taken into surgery. I had to put on a full bodysuit made of some kind of synthetic FedEx-bag-style fabric, plus a hair cover and a face mask. After a brief consult with the anesthesiologist and Dash's surgeon (including more papers to sign), they then took us to a secondary waiting area just for children, with a play area and lots of toys. All the other kids in the playroom got stuffed bears from their doctors, but I guess we didn't get one because Dash already had a bear from home? Whatever.

Dash was called for his surgery around 7:45 a.m. and I carried him in, put him down on the hospital bed. The nurses asked what name they should call him when the anesthesia wore off, so he would hear something familiar, maybe comforting. They asked me to hold his arms out of the way and try to comfort him while the anesthesia took effect (through a face mask), and then announced, "he's asleep!" which was, apparently, my signal to leave. So after a confusing couple of seconds, a nurse offered to guide me back to a consult room. I waited for about ten minutes while furiously typing text messages to family and friends to keep my mind off the surgery, when another nurse came to get me because Dash was done!

When he and I reached the post-op room, he was very disoriented and screaming, with eyes closed. But he quickly came out of it and let me know that he wasn't interested in sitting around. I carried him around the room while he stoically watched the other children scream. I was pretty proud of him for being the first child to settle down! One of the nurses offered Dash a drink, which he refused. Instead, he had noticed the refrigerator behind the nurses' station and pointed. And pointed again. I walked him over there and asked the nurses if we could come back there so I could figure out what he wanted. A nurse looked at him sweetly and asked, "honey, would you like some crackers?" She reached into a cabinet and grabbed a two-pack of saltines. With his treasure in hand, we went back to our seat and he stuffed entire crackers into his head as quickly as possible. I tried the water again, nothing doing. He made the :more: sign at me and pointed directly at the sad, empty, plastic Saltines wrapper. Verrrry clear, this one is! He ate about ten more Saltines (I swear!) then had some water.

Meanwhile, I was given an instruction sheet on how to care for his tubes, we were discharged and on our way. He slept on the drive home and as a treat, I stopped by Krispy Kreme to get us some donut holes (and coffee for me); I hadn't eaten either, thinking that it would only taunt Dash. I had brought some work home, with the mistaken impression that the surgery would leave Dash weak and sleepy. NOPE!!! As soon as we were home, he was practically bouncing off the walls, climbing on the furniture, and pulling books off of shelves. He ate a donut hole or two with me and I barely kept up with my little ball of sunshine-energy before AJS came to relieve me around lunchtime. Dash was amazingly happy and alert!

I do think that his hearing was affected by the repeated ear infections. Just in the past week, he seems to be responding a little better to verbal cues and is imitating us a little more. Yay! Here's hoping that he'll have a few more words soon. The sign language has been a great help, but of course, we'd like him to be speaking more. His latest new word is "duck"!

AJS got on "Best of Craigslist"!!

The Five Stages of Living in the DC Area:
Date: 2006-12-05, 5:38PM EST

Stage 1: Living downtown is the greatest! It’s so wonderful living in such a vibrant, diverse community. I love being able to walk to hipster bars, overpriced tapas restaurants, and leather furniture stores where the cheapest couch costs 6-months rent.

Stage 2: DC is a squalid cesspool, a third-rate wannabe capitol like Dakar or Isengard, full of hipster losers and youth violence gangs of rogue Uruk-hai.

Stage 3: Thank god I live in the suburbs! It’s so clean, the schools are great, and I don’t have to worry about being raped on the way back from Bed Bath and Beyond or having pennies thrown at my head.

Stage 4: Borf was right! The suburbs are a boring, sprawling wasteland of stripmalls, $tarbucKKK$s, and cookie-cutter McMan$$ion$. I read it in the Cliffs Notes to Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. $ma$h the $tate!

Stage 5: Go to Stage 1.

Here's the link to Best of Craigslist.

Ms. Focused and Mr. Speedy!

Sunday, we had a family birthday party for Rosie at my parents' house. It was mostly for Auntie M., who won't be coming to our double-scoop of a joint party this weekend for Rosie AND Liam. Auntie M. must be super-in-tune with Rosie, because once Rosie opened Auntie M.'s gift, she wouldn't look at anything else, or eat, or do anything but play with it for maybe three hours straight. My mom bought her some fairly pricey American Girl twin toddler toys, and she showed no interest in them whatsoever, until later, anyway.

The really FUN part of the evening was when I came to pick them up a few hours later, after they had been eating naught but chocolate ice cream and cupcakes. My little Dash saw me and ran at me with speeds previously unknown, powered by sugar and sleep deprivation. BOY LOVE CUPCAKE!! (And Grandaddy can't resist the puppy-dog eyes and the darling way he signs for :more:) He dashed, he shrieked, he giggled maniacally! And then he crashed on the car ride home, only to wake up just as he hit the mattress in his bedroom and then screamed bloody murder for the next hour. Until dinner, that is. Food calms the boy.

Rosie slept with her twins, who are now named "Rosie" and "Dash." She is enamored, and I will let her grandma know. We left the unicorn-land-of-many-chokables at her grandparents' house...

[RANT ALERT] sometimes it's the little things...

This is just me ranting, but I was just on the phone with my pediatrician's office to schedule a pre-op appointment for Dash's ear tubes (yes, he's getting tubes). When the call connected, I briefly heard the air in the reception desk area, was immediately put on hold without a greeting, then after less than a minute, disconnected. I called them right back and explained how I was disconnected to the receptionist and just got "[sigh] what were you calling about?" When I replied, "Okay! Someone hung up on me and I don't get an apology?" I got DEAD AIR.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere, I went ahead with scheduling the appointment, but brought the issue up again at the end of the conversation, because I was still upset about the poor treatment. The receptionist told me, "well, I don't know who you were talking to," and still refused to apologize.

My point here IS (and there is one) that this small rudeness reflects on the ENTIRE PRACTICE! not just whomever screwed up with the phone system. It doesn't matter WHO screwed up, it could have been anyone (even you) and sucking it up to YOUR CUSTOMER who is GIVING YOU $$$$ should be standard. WTF. How hard is it to say "I'm sorry for your inconvenience"?Seriously?

Voting makes me think of Douglas Adams

Take me to your lizard…

(Context: Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are discussing the huge robot that just landed in downtown London, killing people, doing billions of dollars of damage—and announced ‘I come in peace, take me to your lizard’)

"…It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…," said Ford.
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" asked Arthur.
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don’t people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn’t occur to them," said Ford. "They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" "What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They’re completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it."
"But that’s terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "If I had one Altarian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin. But I haven’t and I am."

Douglas Adams, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

AJS's surprise birthday party!

AJS's birthday is Nov. 5th; we made plans on the 4th to go duckpin bowling with the kids and Kelly's family at some lanes in College Park. What I didn't tell him was that I invited all his other friends and made it a birthday party! It was great fun, and he was really surprised.

I was amazed that most of the folks that we invited joined us, which made it an especially nice party.














The shocker for me was that Dash is an extremely enthusiastic bowler.

Here's Dash and me getting ready to bowl:


















Then bowling (he did knock a few pins down!):












And this is me, clapping at his bowl, while he is off, already getting another ball:

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween
Originally uploaded by nylonthread.

We all went to Rock n Romp's Halloween bash in Silver Spring last weekend. It took us about an hour to drive there, due to traffic and general distance and Rosie slept most of the way. Rosie had been very excited about the party, because she could wear her pretty "snow princess" costume and, because we are well aware of her aversion to masks (screaming uncontrollably), we tried to prepare her for the hard fact that people would probably also be wearing costumes. Kellygo took photos for me, so thankfully, I have all the costumes documented! THANKS Kelly! Thea is trying to cheer Rosie up by giving her an attractive spider ring! Notice that Rosie is NOT reaching for it...

Well she did just fine until she saw what was apparently the most scary costume at the party—A TACO. For the next 30 minutes until we left, she spent most of our time crying and screaming, renewed every time the Taco was in her line of sight.

The rest of us were having blast! Our friends were there, we were enjoying all the costumes, the music and the fun crowd. Dash (in the Dash Parr costume), really had fun! He was dancing and clapping with the music (esp. The Antiques' cover of "Ghostbusters").

We were pretty sad to have to leave, but Rosie was just freaking out towards the end. Dash was trying to comfort her, in this photo. On top of the Taco, she was also terrified of a little girl wearing a Superman mask. So after driving an hour, we spent 1/2 an hour at the party (planned to spend 2 to 3 hours) then drove for another hour home. :-(